


Purple Eyes

by ScienceGeeky



Category: Doctor Who, Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Normal Doctor Who sad stuff, Sadness and sad stories, nothing graphic, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:37:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScienceGeeky/pseuds/ScienceGeeky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor finds Aradia and Sollux just before they are killed and takes them on adventures through all of time and space. </p><p>Written in the form of TV episodes, thirteen total and one every Friday if I can write fast enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ships in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> This is a semi-interactive crossfic. I’ll just leave questions to sort of guide this where it may go. Please comment/review! 
> 
> The Doctor rescues Aradia and Sollux from a solar flare on the Green Sun and takes them to Earth far in the future, where the Daleks are attacking openly for the first time. But something is changing history. Something only Aradia and Sollux can stop.

The Green Sun looms large in paradox space. Its light burns, shining past everything. Two children float in the light. One girl had gossamer wings that are spread, green light shining through the thin red material. The other simply floats. They are speaking, feeling calmer than they have in a long, long time. 

Aradia and Sollux are the ones who float by the Green Sun, holding each other’s hands to keep from floating away. 

“Aradia?”

“Sollux?” 

“Is it sort of…I don’t know, but there’s something…”

“I know what you mean,” she says, gently pulling him closer to her, because he has started to drift away. “Let me see if there’s something wrong.”

Sollux watches her as she lets go of his hand and flutters around, searching for the source of their psychic discomfort. 

“There’s going to be a solar flare, a huge one, in a very short amount of relative time,” Aradia says to Sollux, sounding afraid. “We can’t avoid it.”

“Uh…will we…uh…”

“Yes. Unless we find some genius way out of here, we are going to die very, very soon.” 

* * *

The Doctor spun around, flipping switches and setting the TARDIS to take him somewhere random. The TARDIS wailed and made its sound as it flew to somewhere even the Doctor had never been. 

The TARDIS stopped. The Doctor stared at the door, excited to see what could possibly out there to surprise him. He was about to open the door when a frantic knocking came from outside. 

“OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!” a girl shouted. The Doctor stepped back. 

“OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” a boy screamed, sounding completely hysterical. 

The Doctor reached for the lock. Just as he turned it, the girl gave the door a mighty push and tumbled inside with the boy. She slammed the door and stood, both her and the boy breathing hard and wide-eyed. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” the girl shouted, her eyes wild and terrified. 

The Doctor decided to listen to her and took the TARDIS away from the Green Sun and to Earth. 

The girl was supporting the boy, who was limping badly and ridiculously tall. The girl, a bit shorter and not limping, said, “It’s okay. We escaped.”

“Is there somewhere I can lie down?” the boy asked, very pale. Pale, that is, for someone with gray skin. The Doctor was quite sure that he’d never seen this type of alien before. Or had he? They looked vaguely familiar. The red, orange, and yellow horns, the yellow-orange eyes, the gray skin, it all reminded him of something. 

He shook his head. “Yeah. Up those stairs, down the hall, first door on the right.”

The girl helped the boy to the room, then returned to the control room. “Aradia Megido, Maid of Time,” she introduced herself, sticking out her hand. “And that’s Sollux, Sollux Captor. Who’re you?” 

“I’m the Doctor.”

“Nice to meet you, The Doctor,” the girl, Aradia, said, shaking his hand. 

“You didn’t ask me Doctor who,” the Doctor noted. 

“We’ve had quite enough to do with ‘Doctors’,” Aradia sighed, sitting down and leaning against the railing. 

“This is very unusual,” the Doctor said. 

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not every day teenage girls in pyjamas knock on the door of my TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “So what’s your story?”

“It’s a long story. I mean, it is a long, long story,” the girl sighed. 

“I’m all ears,” the Doctor said. 

The girl sighed again. “Well, I guess it started the day I sent Sollux the glyphs so he could make this game called Sgrub. It was a game that both destroyed our world and created another universe. And…well, we made the other universe, but this evil guy called Jack Noir stopped us from entering it. That was when I was still a robot with not a lot of proper feelings. I used my telekinesis to get us all to the Veil, a ring of asteroids around Skaia, which is a sentient planet. Then we all sat in a computer lab for a while. Then I, as a robot, blew up and got god tier on Derse. Then Noir destroyed Derse and Prospit, which are places where our dream selves live. Oh yeah, and a bunch of my robotic copies got blown up. Then I went to the Green Sun, after visiting a dream bubble and picking up Sollux. Then we met a bunch of our friends, humans and trolls. Oh, I’m explaining this terribly. But anyways, we all met up, the ones of us who are still alive at any rate, and then Sollux and I used our psychic powers to send the asteroid where our friends are hurtling through paradox space. We stayed behind at the sun. And we were about to die from a solar flare when you saved us.”

“Trolls! I knew I knew your species.” 

“The only Doctor I know is Doc Scratch, who’s given us quite enough trouble already.”

“You wouldn’t know me. That’s not how it works.”

“Can I lie down somewhere too? I’m really tired. I don’t feel so great.”

“Sure. Up the stairs…”

“…first door on the right. You said.” She smiled. 

“Wait. You said Maid of Time.”

“It’s the title the game gave me. I have a lot of power over and understanding of time. That’s also a long story.” 

“You can tell it tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Doctor.”

“Goodnight, Aradia.” 

Aradia climbed the stairs heavily to the room where Sollux was fast asleep. She half smiled, seeing him sprawled on the bottom bunk. The room had bunk beds, which worked out well. Aradia climbed to the upper bunk and promptly fell asleep. 

When she woke the next morning, Sollux was still fast asleep. She sat next to him and gently poked his shoulder. “Come on, Captor. Wake up.”

He groaned and rolled over. “Eridan’s here,” she said. 

“Kill him for me,” Sollux muttered. 

Aradia thought for a minute. “I will make you eat honey,” she threatened. 

“You wouldn’t,” he said, sounding horrified. 

“I would.”

“Fine.” Sollux stood and plodded to the control room, Aradia jogging ahead. 

“You look familiar,” the Doctor commented to Aradia when she entered. 

“What?” she asked. 

“I feel like I’ve seen you before…” the Doctor said. “Oh, never mind.” 

“What on Alternia is going on?” Sollux asked, joining the other two. 

“We are not on Alternia,” the Doctor said. “Outside those doors is a whole new world. Want to guess?”

“Earth,” they both said at once. They laughed. “I thought we’d agreed to stop that,” Aradia said. 

“You know I never agreed I would out loud, and it doesn’t count if it’s just thoughts,” Sollux argued. 

“How did you two know that?” the Doctor asked. 

“We’re psychics,” Sollux said. “It gets weird sometimes.”

“Especially for other people,” Aradia said. “So I guess this is where the humans live.”

“Yes…you know the humans too?” the Doctor said. 

“We’ve talked to four of them,” Aradia said. “Rose and Jade and Dave and John.”

“Rose who?”

“Lalonde, why?”

“Just someone I used to know,” the Doctor said. 

“What year is it?” Sollux asked. 

“413-sigma-pineapple. The Earth is about to defend itself without me for the first time. The Daleks are extremely vicious, but the humans are remarkably adept at defending themselves. It’s quite the sight to see.” He handed Aradia a pair of glasses. 

“What are these?” she asked. 

“Telescope,” he said. “Look at that ship.”

“You know, that ship looks familiar,” Aradia said. “It’s weird.” 

“That ship is not the right one,” the Doctor said. 

“What do you mean?” Aradia asked curiously. 

“That ship,” he pointed to a large ship in another part of the sky. “Is supposed to be there. It’s a Dalek ship and they’re the first to invade Earth when I don’t help out. That ship,” he pointed to the other ship, the one Aradia thought she recognized. “Is not.”

Sollux took the glasses from Aradia. “Is that…” he began, but he stopped. Aradia took the glasses off his face and shoved them onto her own. Her mouth opened halfway and she covered it with one hand. “Yes,” she answered. “Quick, get in the blue box! We have to get on that ship!”

“Why?” the Doctor asked. 

“That’s the ship of the Condesce.” 

They entered the TARDIS and the Doctor piloted them onto the ship whose existence was wrong in every way possible. 

* * *

“So, where do we start?” Aradia asked. 

“Well, I would guess with that,” the Doctor said. 

“What?”

“The gigantic computers displaying strategy charts,” Sollux said flatly. 

“Brilliant!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Look at all these brilliant ideas! And these computers! You are all so lucky! Look at this! This is so exciting!”

“Great,” Sollux said, unimpressed by the computers he’d grown up with. “But look, this isn’t that weird. I mean, they’re just computers.”

“Trolls! A new species I’ve never seen before! I know it for sure this time, someone peeked at my Christmas list.”

“Christmas?” Sollux asked. 

“It’s like Twelfth Perigree for humans,” Aradia explained. 

“Your species is fascinating and we can study this close up!”

“Great,” Sollux said. 

Aradia smiled. 

“These plans…look at them. They are very carefully calculated for a species that is not at all human. This would be an absolutely genius plan to defeat the Greckens, but for humans it is useless! How could that be? Trolls are far too intelligent to make such a mistake! And look at this, right here. These galactic coordinates point to a completely different place.”

“So?” Sollux asked. 

“The trolls aren’t piloting the ship!” the Doctor exclaimed. “It’s the Daleks!”

“What the hell?” Sollux asked. 

“The Daleks…are trying to distract Earth!” Aradia realized. 

“Precisely! And, if the humans are distracted with the trolls, the Daleks are defeating Earth at the same time, and the trolls are fighting Daleks too, and in the midst of all this the trolls shouldn’t be here at all…”

“Everything is going to go to shit,” Sollux stated flatly. 

“Yes, exactly,” the Doctor said. “Come on. Trolls!”

“Why?” Aradia asked. 

“They have to get back to the right universe. Now, or history is going to go completely wrong.” 

And with that, he was off, leaving Sollux and Aradia to exchange looks and run after him. 

* * *

They arrived in a room full of cabinets and drawers. The Doctor waited as Sollux stopped for breath and Aradia flexed her shoulder muscles in preparation for flying. 

Footsteps. 

Aradia ducked behind a cabinet. She grabbed Sollux’s hand and pulled him down with her. “Try to stay out of sight,” she hissed. 

The Doctor joined them. “Sh, let’s listen,” he whispered. 

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Feferi,” a girl in a burgundy dress said to a girl with long hair and a trident. 

“But Aradia, we don’t have a choice,” the girl with the trident, Feferi, said hopelessly. 

A boy walked in and put a hand on Feferi’s shoulder. “It’s okay, FF. I’ll always be here for you,” he said. Feferi sighed, gave his hand a quick squeeze, and walked up the stairs. 

“You can’t keep doing this to her,” the other Aradia said to the boy. “He’s going to die soon, Sollux, and you’ll have to take his place. I’m your morail. She’s your matesprit. You can’t keep this up.”

“I know,” the other Sollux said. “How much longer?”

“I can feel it. Not long,” she said. “Your time is running out.”

The other Sollux nodded and followed the other Feferi up the stairs. The other Aradia sat down and sighed. Then she stood and left the room. Aradia stared after the girl. “Who…what…this doesn’t make sense,” she said, shaking her head. 

“There’s more than one human named Rose, so it follows that there’s probably more than one troll named Aradia and Sollux,” the Doctor pointed out. 

“But we know a Feferi too, who was Sollux’s matesprit, I mean, girlfriend,” Aradia said. “What are the odds of that?”

“Pretty slim,” the Doctor admitted. “But possible.”

Another troll passed through the room, pausing briefly to flip a switch and grab an item. Aradia caught a glimpse of his face. “I’d swear that was Equius,” Aradia said, spooked. “I mean, his face, but older.”

“They’re from the wrong universe,” the Doctor said. “This is completely wrong. We have to stop them.”

“Them is us,” Sollux said. “We have to fight ourselves and all our friends.” 

“I bet our ancestors are going to be here,” Aradia said. 

“Ancestors are BS,” Sollux said dismissively. 

“Who do you think the ‘he’ piloting the ship was? Your ancestor. Feferi’s is the Condesce. It’s real. They’re real.”

“I still say it’s total BS.”

“Once we’ve met them, maybe you won’t.” 

Sollux doubted it. 

* * *

They kept running, headed for a place to rest and plan. 

“Sollux. I heard something,” Aradia said. 

“Me too. Let’s go take a look,” Sollux said, turning left down the corridor. A strange sound, almost like a scream that was absolutely silent and deafeningly loud at the same time, echoed down the empty hallway. It chilled Aradia to the bone. Something was wrong—she could feel it in the air. Something was very, very wrong. 

An ominous door stood at the end of the hallway. “Behind that door,” the Doctor said, rapping on it, “Is a very, very powerful psychic field.”

Sollux looked suddenly nervous. He knew that his psychic powers made him more susceptible than anyone else. He hung back as the Doctor pushed open the door. 

A troll was grafted into the ship, his brain and body connected to the cold metal by grotesque semi-biotic branches all over his body. His eyes flickered different colors, staring unseeingly ahead. His mouth was open in a silent scream whose psychic wails echoed through the entire ship and peaked here. Sollux’s knees bucked and he collapsed on the ground, clamping his hands over his ears in a desperate attempt to block out that horrible screaming. Aradia could hear it as well, the terrible screaming in her head that seemed to block out every other thought. She could see the Doctor covering his ears as well. He looked pained, holding his head in his hands and pacing back and forth. Aradia braced herself and walked over to Sollux. 

“Sollux. Come on. Let’s go,” she whispered. 

He slowly stood and followed them out the door. 

“Aradia?”

“Yeah?”

“You know how I said the ancestors were BS?”

“Yeah.”

“I change my mind.”

Sollux looked deeply shaken and very scared. “I met mine once,” Aradia said. “She came to my hive and told me about the glyphs. She told me the stories of our ancestors. I didn’t care enough to tell anyone and later I thought she was probably some crazy lady. We could only communicate psychically. I dunno why I never told any of you guys. But it’s all pretty awful.”

“What do you mean?” Sollux asked. 

“It’s a series of horrible stories, really, mostly about the Signless or the Sufferer, whatever you want to call him. And the Summoner. Maybe I should’ve told someone. Would’ve made Nepeta happy.” 

“Why?”

“Not the time! We’re a bit busy, in case you haven’t noticed. I’ll tell you when we have a break.” 

“Like that will every happen!” 

“Just come on!”

“We need to find a place to rest,” the Doctor said. “I’ve got a plan.”

“You’ve got a plan,” Sollux stated, a little surprised. 

“Yes,” the Doctor said with a wide grin. “Sorry, I forgot to mention it.” 

Aradia smiled and shook her head. “Well, come on then.” 

Sollux tapped a few codes onto a keypad and a door opened. “Tell us, then.” 

“They’re from the wrong universe,” the Doctor said once they’d entered the room and closed the door. “All of them. Can’t you see?”

“How did they get here?”

“They’ve got a void ship.”

“What?”

“Here,” the Doctor handed her Sollux’s glasses. Aradia put them on. “What’s all that stuff?”

“It’s void stuff!” the Doctor said. “From traveling through the void. They must’ve had a void bubble to travel from one universe to another. It’s a void bubble! For void travel! Isn’t that cool?!”

“Okay, I’m lost,” Sollux said. 

“Hm…imagine three universes. A, B, and C,” the Doctor said. “Those trolls, attacking Earth, are from A. You guys are from universe B. This universe is universe C. Think A for alternate, B for beta, and C for correct. As in, we have to correct this. Because that void bubble shouldn’t exist. Isn’t that exciting?”

“I wish Equius was here,” Aradia said. “Never thought I’d say that again.”

Sollux looked intensely uncomfortable. Aradia kicked herself mentally. That was so moronic on her part. “Remind me, did anyone else make god tier?”

“Just you and Vriska,” Sollux answered. “And the humans.” 

“Okay. That’s great. Now, what’s the plan?” Aradia asked, trying to change the subject. 

“Well…” the Doctor began. “Aradia, you have to go to the bridge. Sollux and I will go to the computers…”

* * *

Aradia crept along the hallways, ready to fight her way to the bridge. She was good at hiding, excellent at time travel, but this whole somehow-get-to-the-bridge just wasn’t her style. Her nerves were starting to get the better of her as she turned another corner. And then suddenly, someone horribly familiar was there. 

Aradia emerged from her hiding spot to face Aradia. 

She immediately decided to call this girl Alternate Aradia. 

Aradia pulled out her whip. Alternate (A for short) Aradia also drew her weapon and attacked Aradia. She had no way to dodge, no way to defend herself. So she didn’t. 

She disappeared and popped in the same place ten or fifteen seconds later. 

“How did you do that?” A Aradia shouted. 

“Don’t you remember your god tier?” Aradia shouted back. 

“What do you mean?” A Aradia asked. 

“Your god tier! Sgrub! Maid of Time! Rose, Dave, Jade, John! The green sun! Skaia, Prospit, Derse! Ringing any bells?” Aradia listed, desperate to find out if her alternate self knew anything. 

“No! Who are you?” A Aradia yelled. 

“I’M YOU!” Aradia screamed, upset in a way she hadn’t been in too long a time. “I’M YOU BEFORE IT ALL WENT WRONG! How old are you, anyways? 10? 11? You’re more than halfway through your life! And you’ve wasted it all!” Aradia and A Aradia were still fighting, throwing blows and blocking and dodging as they shouted. 

“I’VE DONE NOTHING WRONG!” A Aradia yelled. “I have done what I should and I’m perfectly fine!”

“WHO EVER TOLD YOU WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO? DID YOU EVER EVEN DIE?” Aradia asked, still desperate to find something that was the same. 

“NO! I AM ALIVE AND I WILL NOT LET SOME KID IN PAJAMAS TELL ME THAT I’VE FUCKED UP MY LIFE!”

“BUT YOU DID! YOU COULD HAVE DONE SO MUCH AND YOU DIDN’T! WHAT ABOUT THE GLYPHS?”

“I GAVE UP! THEY WERE NOTHING IMPORTANT!”

“THEY WERE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE!” Aradia countered, snapping her whip at the other girl. 

A Aradia abandoned conversation and threw something at Aradia, which the later dodged. Aradia ran form the room and hoped that A Aradia would pursue her so Sollux and the Doctor could do something. But she was distressed. Alternate her had never died, never been a robot, never played Sgrub, never been brought back to life, never done half the things she had. But it went both ways. Aradia had never fought in the war, invaded a planet, watched as more of her friends were culled. She supposed that it was likely that some of her friends had died, but it seemed impossible. Unlikely, anyways. 

Sollux and the Doctor burst into the main computer room. “What do we do?” Sollux asked. 

“Hack it,” the Doctor said. “We might be able to get it with two of us.” 

“I thought you said they were unhackable.”

“That was the Daleks. The trolls, we might have a shot.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“Well…no, but I’m sure that between the two of us, we can come up with something.”

“Keep dreaming.”

Sollux started to type frantically on the keyboard in an attempt to hack the Condesce’s computer system. “Oh shit…and then that…no, that…FUCK.” 

The Doctor started to mess around with the computer with some odd buzzing device. “What is that?” Sollux asked, still focused on the computer. 

“Sonic screwdriver.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“Oy! Don’t diss the sonic!”

“Chill the fuck out. I’m just wondering.”

“It does…sonic-y stuff.” 

“Okay.” Sollux returned to his typing. “GOG DAMMIT!” he shouted suddenly. 

“Need help?” the Doctor asked. 

“No. I’m fine,” Sollux said irritably. A few seconds later, he shouted, “FUCK THIS SHIT!”

The Doctor came over with his sonic screwdriver thing and opened the program in two seconds. 

Sollux looked through the files, cracked his knuckles, and kept on working. 

* * *

Aradia heard two familiar, blueblood voices. Vriska and Terezi. She ducked into the room and stood perfectly still behind a pillar. 

“What is up with you?” Vriska asked of Terezi. “Thinking about him again?”

“Yeah, so what if I am? It’s okay to be sad about someone you liked who was culled!”

“Yeah, so? You know who else was culled? Tav—”

Terezi cut Vriska off. “He got culled because of something you did to him! Karkat was culled because of his blood! He’s been dead for four sweeps!” 

“You made him depressed when you said you wanted to go out with someone else! I swear, you think more about him than Nepeta, and she was his matesprit.” 

“She just covers it up better,” Terezi argued. “Everybody misses the both of them.” 

“Look, just suck it up and get back to the debate. We need to resolve this before you-know-who comes and kills us all, and I mean that literally.” 

“Shut the fuck up and leave me alone,” Terezi said, crossing her arms. 

“Fine,” Vriska said, tossing her hair over her shoulder and leaving in a huff. Terezi stayed just long enough to sigh before standing up and walking out. 

Aradia was shaken. She supposed she should’ve seen it coming, but it still shocked her that her friends could be culled. She’d had a friend, a teal blood, called Mizune Justele, a long time ago, who was culled when they were just four. She shook herself and stood from her crouched position behind the door. Get to the bridge. Meet Sollux. Get these trolls back to the proper universe. Just keep going. 

She came to a door that for some reason seemed important to her. Aradia put her ear to the door. No one in here, she thought. She gently pushed the door open to see ten trolls arguing about something. Shit, soundproof room, she thought. The ten stared at her and she stared back uncomfortably. 

Terezi stood and walked over to her. Time to lie for my life, Aradia thought. 

“What’s your name?”

“Mizune. Mizune Justele. Teal blood,” Aradia recited, as if from memory. 

“Why are you here?”

“I’m looking for my friend. He got hurt in battle a long time ago and it’s coming back to haunt him.”

“You seemed pretty unsure when you walked in here.”

“I…uh…you know how it is, when someone you love is dying,” Aradia said. “It’s hard.” Bingo, she thought. “Or they’re going to be gone, you know? And you get all flustered and stuff…” 

Aradia saw a look of deep sadness flicker into Terezi’s eyes. But Terezi remained completely in control. “What is his name?” she asked. 

Aradia blurted the first name that came to mind. “Karkat Vantas,” she said. A moment passed. Terezi stared in shock and anger. Aradia clamped her hands over her mouth. “Shit,” she said. The next second, all ten were coming at her, weapons raised. She involuntarily took off and flew to the rafters. Something, a cane, was hurled at her. Aradia caught it. She glanced down and saw Terezi, an almost wild look in her eyes, trying to take back the cane. Nine of the ten were attacking her, having realized that she was an intruder. But she was a troll! What did they think was going on?

She remembered Terezi and Vriska’s conversation earlier. This meeting between them was a secret. They didn’t want who she presumed was the Condesce to find them. They must think she was a spy for the Condesce. 

The lights suddenly turned off. The Doctor’s plan to cut the power must be working. Aradia had an idea. “You know I can still smell you, bitch!” Terezi shouted. 

“Why are you so upset about Karkat anyways? He wasn’t even your matesprit,” Aradia taunted. She knew that if Terezi got mad enough, Terezi would make a mistake. She was right. 

Terezi spun around or something and dropped something with a loud sound. It distracted all of them just long enough for Aradia to fly out of the room. 

She just had to go to the bridge. 

How on Alternia had she gotten in so much trouble?

“Doctor,” Sollux said. “What are you doing?” 

“If we can persuade the computers to shut down the ship, the automatics will take over, specifically the automatic navigation systems and the backup nuclear hyperspace drives, sending the trolls back to their universe and the planet they are planning to attack,” the Doctor answered. 

“If you say so.” 

Sollux kept working. “Aaaand…got it.”

“Great!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Go to the bridge with Aradia and I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay. Whatever.” 

He just had to get to the bridge. 

Aradia reached the door and stared. She hadn’t thought about this. How could she get through the keypad door? She stared for a very long time. She was about to give up and try to find the Doctor when an out-of-breath Sollux ran around the corner and punched something into the keypad, smiling almost imperceptibly at Aradia for such a brief second that she wasn’t sure if she’d actually caught it or not. 

And now the Condesce was staring at them with a look that could almost kill and a 2X3dent that could. 

What had the Doctor said? Talk, keep her talking. Make up something to make her talk. 

“We could beat you any day,” Sollux goaded. “Me and Aradia, we could beat you even if you had an entire army with you.”

“As if you could ever defeat me! You’re just a couple of lowblood kids with no real power in this world!” 

“Just a lowblood? What about a lowblood who has control over all of time?” Aradia said. 

Sollux stood. “A lowblood who can see the future?”

Aradia took his hand. “Lowbloods who can move things with our minds? You’re terrified of us, aren’t you? You’re absolutely terrified of us. You know that every single one of us is more powerful than you. Every single lowblood could control you. And you know that someday, we will rise up and take back control of our lives. Because we are strong, we are important, and we are united. That’s why you keep them down. You know that your downfall is inevitable. And even if you put down every single rebellion, your time is running out. The clock is ticking until Feferi takes your place. 

“That’s what you’re really scared of. Losing your power. And you realize that the lower we are, the more freedom of though we have. The lower we are, the less you can control us. You’re scared of us because we’re just six. You have no control over us, and we have so much power over you. Because that’s what your worst fear is: losing your power. You know that if you had no power, you would have nothing but centuries of emptiness in front of you. 

“We have our own thoughts. You can’t control us or anyone else. Lowbloods, highbloods, and everyone in between—we all own our own minds and thoughts. No matter what you do, we own our minds, and that is the most precious and most powerful and most amazing thing anyone can ever own.” 

“You’re dreading it,” Sollux continued. “You’re dreading the day he dies and you have to replace him…with me. That’s alternate me you’re going to use to pilot this ship. And you’re scared because he’s only 10 or 11, maybe even younger. He still has so much control of his own mind. You can’t make him do what you want him to, and he will bite back. I know because I am him. And I know that no matter what or who was threatening me, I would fight back. 

“I may be a clumsy introvert who can’t do anything but program some shitty viruses, and I may not be a great fighter or have ever gotten god tier, but I will fight with everything I have. And, Your Imperious Condescension, I have a lot on my side.”

“And I may be a dead girl who was a robot and a frog and a million other things so that I don’t even know who I am anymore, but I have my mind and my life. We played a game that saved our race and destroyed our old world. We have done so much. We may be just a couple of lowbloods, but we are lowbloods who beat the odds and won. And maybe it’s just my new life talking, but I bet that we can win again,” Aradia finished. 

The Condesce drew her weapon. Aradia stood her ground, not even bothering to draw her whip. She saw Sollux brace himself for a psychic battle. The time to fight was now. The Doctor’s part would come in any minute, when he came in to do his talking. 

 

The Condesce threw her weapon and Sollux deflected it. Aradia caught the 2X3dent with her mind and tossed it around over her enemy’s head. “Psychics. You’ve always wanted them and you never could.” 

“I could kill you all with just a whisper!” 

“And risk killing off half your army? You wouldn’t!” Sollux shouted. 

That was when the lights shut up and the Doctor entered the room. 

“The Condesce, I presume,” he began. “The ruler of all trolls. I’ve been told that your lot are rather vicious. Or so you think. You control them all with a creature called Gl'bgolyb that could kill all the trolls if her voice was raised. Quite a clever strategy, I’ll give you that. You could control every single troll. But think about it. If all those lowbloods died, who would fight for you? It’s clever and all, until enough of them realize their freedom. Now, you could let them all go now and survive yourself.”

“Or what?” she challenged sarcastically. 

“Or we’ll have to stop you,” the Doctor said. 

“Yeah right,” she scoffed. 

“I mean it,” the Doctor said. “Come on then.”

“Execute them,” she said. 

“Any second now,” Sollux murmured to Aradia. “Any second.”

Something shook the entire ship. “Come on!” the Doctor shouted. “We’ve got to get to the TARDIS!”

“What is happening?” the Condesce shouted. 

“Back through the void, back to your universe!” the Doctor shouted as they ran from the room and to the TARDIS.

“AA!” Sollux shouted, out of breath. She grabbed his arms and flew him along to the TARDIS. 

“We’re going to the Dalek ship now!” the Doctor shouted. 

“Why the hell would you do that?” Sollux asked. 

“Hold on!” 

The TARDIS landed heavily on the Dalek ship, right in the middle of the Dalek “high council.” 

“Did you really think you could get away with this?” the Doctor asked the Dalek leader. “Did you really think this would never be discovered? You created a void bubble, brought an entire new race of aliens to Earth, and you could have destroyed the Earth. This contradicts the first clause of the Shadow Proclamation, not to mention several laws of time! Now, I order you to send the trolls back to their own universe and never try this again!” 

“Or what?” the Dalek asked, and its harsh, metallic voice grated on Aradia’s ear. Sollux winced. The Doctor didn’t flinch. 

“I will use your weapons to blow us all up.”

“Killing you and your new companions.”

“Yes, if I have to!”

The Dalek stared at the Doctor and the Doctor stared at the Dalek. 

“You could not kill us, Doctor. You know this. You have always known this.”

“I don’t care. You cannot do this.”

“Yet you will allow us to attack your precious Earth.”

For the first time, the Doctor showed something like sadness. “You know there are fixed points in time as well as I do.” 

“And this is one of them?”

The Doctor didn’t answer. 

“Then you cannot interfere!” the Dalek shouted. 

“Maybe I can’t. But I can defend the laws of time, and I order you to send the trolls back to their own universe and time and relinquish control over them!”

No answer. 

“You can attack Earth. You will no matter what I say. But unless you send the trolls back, I’ll have to stop you.”

The Dalek was the first to flinch that time. “We will comply. The Doctor has sacrificed his favorite species for the sake of laws he does not even follow!”

The Doctor ignored them as he pulled Aradia and Sollux back onto the TARDIS and took off. 

They landed on Earth to watch what they came for in the first place.

“No one will ever know,” Aradia said. 

“Does that ever bother you, Doctor?” Sollux asked. “That no one ever knows?”

“No,” the Doctor answered. “As long as history is correct and everyone is safe, what difference does it make who knows who did what?”

“It matters to me,” Aradia said. “Time and time again, you miss out on the credit, don’t you. I’m sure you get thanked, sometimes, but you miss it a lot, don’t you.” 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

“You can keep pretending you don’t know what I mean, but you do. You’ll have to answer someday.”

“What did they say about Earth being your favorite planet?” Aradia questioned

“Humans! They’re incredible.”

“So…you could’ve let the trolls stay and then you would’ve been allowed to interfere to save the humans. Why didn’t you?” Aradia asked. 

The Doctor hesitated. “The laws of time are too precarious. If I let that happen, all of time could deteriorate. That would cause every species to die.” 

Aradia nodded. “I understand.” 

There was a long silence as they watched the Daleks and the humans fight. 

“Come on,” the Doctor said. “Let’s go on an adventure!”

“Let’s go,” Aradia agreed. “Allons-y!”


	2. The Snowy Planet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the crew of the TARDIS lands on a planet where nothing lives, nothing is as it seems, something is new on the planet and it’s not good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late (and short) update! My friend and I are throwing together a couple of CMV’s so I've been on a cosplay-making binge. Hopefully I can get back to writing more now!
> 
> Please, please leave a comment to answer the question and guide the story along! It's in the end notes.

All is quiet on the snowy planet. Frozen flakes tumble from the steel-gray clouds and land on pine trees and frozen rivers, skeletal tree branches and rock-hard ground. Purple lights flash in the far distance, casting a bright aura in the dark sky. Nothing moves. Not even the wind.

  
A sudden purple flash comes once again. One could almost hear a sound mixed in, but nothing lives on this snowy, empty planet. Nothing lives. Nothing moves. Not even the wind. Not even the tiniest breeze.

 

***

 

“Bubbera!” the Doctor exclaimed.

  
“Bubbera?” Sollux asked.

  
“Bubbera,” the Doctor confirmed.

  
“And what is Bubbera?” Aradia asked.

  
“The third world of the Aré-Bbub system. Some of the friendliest people in the universe live there. Beautiful, sunny, third most popular planet to visit.”

  
“After what?” Sollux asked.

  
“Appalappachia and the planet of the coffee shops. Nothing interesting.”

  
“Can’t wait!” Aradia said excitedly.

  
The TARDIS landed with a bump on the planet. The Doctor opened the door and stepped out. He stepped right back in. “It’s not Bubbera,” he said.

  
“Then what is it?” Aradia asked.

  
“I think it’s the unnamed world. Nothing lives here besides trees. Literally,” the Doctor answered, sounding excited. “But it’s cold. Let’s go see!”

  
Sollux followed the Doctor outside. Aradia followed, about five minutes later, taking Sollux’s (lost) coat, because he forgot. She smiled affectionately, at Sollux’s forgetfulness and his concealed desire to get outside.

  
She stepped out into the freezing cold and winced. “Sollux!” she called.

  
No response. “Sollux!” she tried again.

  
A far-off rustle. It must be them. Nothing else lived on this forsaken planet.

  
She walked towards the sound. No one was there. A shiver shot down her spine. She whirled around. “Who’s there?” she called. “Who’s there?”

  
It burst out of the bushes and knocked her to the ground. The only thing Aradia could do was scream.

  
“Th-th-that was Aradia,” Sollux said, shivering.

  
“Let’s go!” the Doctor said, taking off running. Sollux stumbled through the woods behind him.  
“Doctor?” Sollux asked.

  
“Yes?” the Doctor answered, stopping.

  
“Didn’t you say nothing lives here?” Sollux questioned, pointing to footprints that were clearly not Aradia’s.

  
“I did,” the Doctor said faintly.

  
“We’ve got to find her,” Sollux said. “She’s my best friend.”

  
“Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll be fine. Well, sort of fine. Well, alive, well, I say alive…”

  
“Doctor, is she okay or not?”

  
“I don’t know! Stop hanging around there and come on!”

  
They burst into a clearing where a scuffle had clearly been taking place.

  
“Those are Aradia’s footprints,” Sollux said.

  
“She must’ve come here from the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “And then…what?”

  
“We have to follow those footsteps,” Sollux said.

  
“They look very…skeletal,” the Doctor said.

  
Sollux nodded. Gulped. “Let’s go,” Sollux said.

  
“Geronimo.”

  
Aradia tried to fight off the skeleton-like being that had attacked her, but it had tight hold of her. It clattered louder and louder as another skeleton approached. “Oh shit,” she muttered. The second skeleton clattered as well, the sounds colliding to create some form of indecipherable speech.

  
They took Aradia to the cave. It was full of half-flesh, half-skeleton monstrosities. She gasped and looked away. She still didn’t know what they were saying. But the terrible _things_ lying on the tables told her that this was where they changed people into those living skeletons. She started to hyperventilate. She’d died too many times. She was not going to die again. She started to kick at the skeletons, but they kept clattering. “Let go! Get OFF of me!” she yelled. The skeletons seemed to look at each other and shrug, almost humanlike. They laid her on a hard stone slab and tied her wrists and ankles. “Stop! Let me GO!” she screamed. The skeletons walked away impassively.

  
The Doctor and Sollux pushed their way through the dark, snowy forest. Occasionally, purple flashes of light brightened the sky.

  
“What’re those?” Sollux asked.

  
“Uh…I don’t know,” the Doctor answered. “And I don’t like not knowing. Let’s go find out.”

  
“Are you insane?” Sollux muttered under his breath. “This is gogdamn insane.”

 

They walked towards the purple flashes, sure that this could mean absolutely nothing good.

 

***

 

Aradia tried not to start shaking as she though about her options. She could use her psychic powers, untie herself, and get out. But she was so _tired_ , and she had a feeling that her powers wouldn’t be much good. She could time-travel, but she could get even more tired and it might not even work. She could beg the skeletons to release her, but she was starting to doubt that they could understand her, and it wasn’t like those evil things would. She could wait until the Doctor and Sollux showed up, but would they find her before it was too late?

  
She was seriously out of options.

  
She tried the psychics first. She closed her eyes, thinking hard about the ropes untangling themselves. She felt the ropes loosen weakly. The knots were slowly coming apart. She was so close…so close…

  
Then her powers gave out and she fell asleep.

  
When she woke up, the knots were tight again. A skeleton that was significantly paler than the others, which were chocolate colored, came up to her with a bottle. The skeleton opened her mouth and poured a measure of liquid down her throat. The skeleton seemed to smile, patting Aradia’s arm gently and chattering something quietly. Even thought Aradia was terrified, the sound seemed to comfort her. Everything about this skeleton seemed kind, except of course the fact that it was trying to turn her into one of them. Maybe she could talk to it?

  
“Hi,” Aradia tried. “My name’s Aradia.”

  
The skeleton tilted its head to the side, as if it was curious about her. It nodded and clattered something. She shook her head and slowly said, “I can’t understand you,” pronouncing each word carefully.

  
The skeleton nodded and clattered again, patting her arm. The skeleton, which for some reason seemed male to Aradia, seemed to slow its speech too. Aradia was deeply confused. The Doctor had told her that the TARDIS auto-translated every and any language. So how come she couldn’t understand this skeleton?

  
Sollux sprinted the rest of the way to the clearing and collapsed on the snowy ground. “Doctor?” he said. “We’re here.”

  
And he was right. The purple flashes (although they seemed like explosions now) were slowly advancing on them. The Doctor took a tentative step forwards as a dark brown skeleton burst through the trees and exploded in a flash of vibrant purple light, a clattering scream echoing in the quiet of the snowy planet.

  
“WHAT THE FUCK?” Sollux shouted.

  
“You sure do swear a lot, don’t you?” the Doctor noted off-topic.

  
“Yeah, I do. So what? A gogdamn skeleton just exploded right in front of us!”

  
“Yes, yes it did. And that shouldn’t happen. Actually, it shouldn’t exist. Actually, none of this should be happening at all, but I’m thinking that you want to focus on finding Aradia. However, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that these skeletons are the key to finding her.” Sollux briefly noticed that wasn’t “your friend” anymore. She was Aradia, and he was Sollux. It was like they were full members of the TARDIS crew.

  
He supposed that weird, warm happiness that stirred inside him was acceptance.

  
“I have an idea,” the Doctor said, leading the way towards a second clearing. “These creatures are new, never seen before. In every Universe History class I ever fell asleep in, this planet was mentioned only as ‘the empty planet.’ It was the place no one’s ever been, the place were nothing but trees lives. Anyone who went, they never came back. And even then, the probes say that the trees are nearly dead. It was a mystery. So here, now, we have a chance to solve the mystery of the empty planet, save Aradia, and defeat some monsters! So, come on! Geronimo!”

  
They dashed through the trees and into the clearing, where hundreds of the skeletons were congregating. They clattered and Sollux could’ve sworn that they were acting social, like this was a party or something. Sollux was deeply confused and, if he was being honest, just a teeny bit scared. The skeletons looked very…troll. He shivered. Aradia had his jacket.

  
The Doctor must’ve noticed. “Are you cold?” he asked Sollux.

  
“A bit,” Sollux shrugged. Suddenly, he noticed something. “Doctor!” he said. “Look.”

  
The Doctor turned and looked at the Hooloovoo being carried through the trees. “Let’s follow!” the Doctor said quietly. “Come on.”

 

They snuck through the trees, ready to solve the mystery of the empty planet.

 

***

 

Aradia shook badly as the bitter liquid coursed through her veins. She felt her muscles atrophying and it felt like her stomach was eating itself. It was excruciating. The poison reached her heart and a violent pain overtook her and she screamed aloud. The skeleton from before, the pale one, returned to her bedside, patting her arm and clattering away. “It hurts,” she said pleadingly. “Please stop it.”

  
The skeleton, once again, cocked its head to the side as if it was trying to understand her. It nodded, then patted her arm one more time and brought over a bottle of something clear and blue-tinted. It opened her mouth and tipped a little down her throat. Instantly, the pain stopped, and the sensations weren’t painful, simply bizarre and frightening. Aradia waited until the skeleton left, then tried her powers again. She closed her eyes and focused as hard as she could on the ropes, on untying them, but the toxins working away at her insides had weakened her and she almost immediately passed out.

  
Sollux, due to his recent three-inch (he thought that was how much he’d grown in human measurements) growth spurt, was exceptionally clumsy. He was managing to trip over everything in his path, including thin air. He usually wasn’t this bad. He would never admit it, but it was probably due to nerves. What if Aradia was dead? He’d lose his best friend in this forsaken universe.

  
“Doctor,” Sollux said. “Uh…what’s that?” The skeleton was carrying the Hooloovoo into a very dark cave.

  
“Uh…probably a conversion chamber of sorts,” the Doctor said. “It’s likely where they turn people into…skeletons.”

  
“Are we going in there?”

  
“Of course!”

  
“Are you nuts?”

  
“I don’t think so, as far as I know! You coming?”

  
“This is fucking crazy!”

  
“But are you coming?”

  
Sollux looked left and right, at the cave and at the forest. “Fine,” he said, following the Doctor through the cave entrance.

  
Surprisingly, the narrow entrance widened into a hallway-type place with bright, hospital-esque lighting. “What is this place?” Sollux wondered aloud.

  
“I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “Come on, let’s see.”

  
They walked further into the cave, and they reached a huge space filled with stone slabs with half skeleton, half flesh _things_ were lying. Some were tied down, some weren’t. None struggled, save two.

  
“Aradia!” Sollux shouted, losing his grip on his emotional cool. He ran over to her slab and said, “Are you okay? Are they turning you into…?”

  
She nodded. “Yeah,” she choked. “It’s not like dying. It’s like…being eat away at.”

  
“We’ll get you out of here,” the Doctor promised. The other struggler, the Hooloovoo, called out. The Doctor ran over to its slab and said, “We’ll get you too, don’t worry.”

  
“Okay, great, but how?” Sollux asked.

  
“Well…we have to untie Aradia and our friend the Hooloovoo first. Then…I’d like to give these things a choice. If they agree to stop changing people, we have to let them live. But…if we can’t communicate with them, we might just have one choice,” the Doctor said with a sobering look. Sollux nodded, understanding the seriousness of the situation.

  
“We can start by freeing Aradia.”

  
“Uh, yeah. No shit.”

  
“How about you untie her and I’ll get the Hooloovoo?”

  
“Cool.”

  
Sollux, rather than struggle with the knots by hand, imagined them untying themselves and coming apart as he watched. The ropes did, in fact, come untied this time. Sollux helped Aradia stand up. She was shaky and acting disoriented, like she was only half-conscious.

  
“They gave me this stuff…it’s sort of yellow-green, like Nepeta’s typing color, and it makes me feel like my insides are being eaten up. Then this blue, clear stuff that’s some sort of painkiller,” she explained to the Doctor and Sollux. She threw her arm around Sollux’s shoulders, leaning heavily on the taller boy. Her wings drooped and her hair was messier than usual. “I’m not feeling too great,” she said.

  
“Okay. Uh…” the Doctor said, looking around. “Did they give you anything a sort of purple-pink color?”

  
“Don’t think so,” Aradia said.

  
“Okay. I’m going to try something. Drink a little of this and tell me it you feel better.”

  
Aradia nodded. The Doctor handed her the bottle and Aradia took a tiny sip. It was the strangest thing; she could feel it in her veins and arteries again, and when it reached her heart, something seemed to stop the effects of the other poison, even replenish what she’d lost. Maybe this was some sort of antidote?

  
The pale skeleton ran over to them and yanked the purple-pink bottle out of the Doctor’s hands. It shook one bony finger, seeming to scold Aradia. She shook her head, confused, as it clattered on and on. It tried to push her back down onto the slab, but she resisted with everything she had. She was not going to let that happen again!

  
The skeleton continued to scold, persistently trying to get her to lie down and take the disgusting stuff in the yellow-green bottle.

  
“NO!” Aradia shouted, shoving the skeleton over. It let out a loud screech, causing the other pale skeletons to run over to help out.

  
“Shit,” Sollux said.

  
“RUN!” the Doctor shouted. He grabbed Aradia’s right hand and Sollux’s left and the three of them ran into the forest.

 

***

 

They kept running as the skeletons chased them. Aradia’s health was steadily improving and soon her wings felt light and able again. She fluttered the gossamer wings and when she flew a few feet, she realized what she could do. She grabbed Sollux’s hand, forcing him to let go of the Doctor’s hand, and flew upwards as hard and fast as she could, pulling her two friends with her. The Doctor looked both overjoyed and panicked at the same time, while Sollux just looked terrified. Aradia flew harder, flapping her wings frantically, until she landed heavily in a tall pine tree. “Guys,” she said. “Why can’t we understand them?”

  
“I still don’t know,” the Doctor said. “But…I think that since every single species is unaware of these…things, the TARDIS doesn’t know anything about the language. But she’s working on it, I’m sure of it.”

  
“How long?” Sollux asked.

  
“Honestly? Maybe…an hour or so more.”

  
“Okay. Quick question,” Sollux began. “Why the hell are these things converting others? They haven’t tried anything like conquering the universe or some shit. So why are they doing this? Hell, I didn’t even see a rocket.”

  
“I suppose they’re trying to amass an army of hard-to-kill creatures to complete some task. Maybe they’re building a ship?” the Doctor guessed.

  
“So we wait,” Aradia said.

  
“We wait,” the Doctor said.

  
Aradia’s wings trembled nervously.

  
A half hour passed and the skeletons beneath the tree left, probably to return to the conversion center. Aradia’s wings were still shaking. Sollux put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Hey, AA, you alright?”

  
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just a little nervous. You?”

  
“Fine,” he said, but Aradia heard the tremor in his voice. The Doctor was gripping the tree branch he sat on a bit too tightly, his white-knuckled grip easily visible.

  
That was when Sollux heard the first crack.

  
“FUCK!” he shouted, the branch snapping underneath him and sending him plummeting towards the ground.

  
Aradia jumped off the branch and dove towards the ground, her wings streamlining her until she reached her friend and caught him. When she reached the top of the tree again, her wings struggling to keep her and Sollux aloft. “Doctor?” she asked. “Can we…go? Try to understand them? Because the sooner we defeat these things and get away, the better.”

  
The Doctor started and nearly fell. “Yes, of course, let’s go. Something’s just bothering me. Only you and the Hooloovoo resisted at all in that cave. The others took those drinks willingly. In fact, you were the only one who drank the blue one. It’s…odd.”

  
“Well, the sooner we can ask them, the better,” Sollux said. “Can we get back to the ground now?”

  
“Yeah,” the Doctor answered. Aradia floated to the ground while the Doctor climbed down.

  
They walked carefully through the trees, walking gingerly and slowly. Sollux, his clumsiness once again getting the better of him, kept tripping on broken branches. Or…oh gog, he refused to consider the alternative.

  
They reached the cave and entered silently.

  
Upon seeing the two trolls and one Time Lord, the pale skeletons immediately began chattering loudly again. But this time, the chatter sounded less like dry teeth clacking together and more like too many people talking at once.

  
“Slow down,” the Doctor said.

  
The skeletons, taken aback, stopped talking. One stepped forward.

  
“I am the head doctor at the hospital. My name is Dr. Kylem. You are very sick, and you must stay here so we can heal you.”

  
“What?” the Doctor asked, shocked.

  
“You are vey sick,” Dr. Kylem said slowly. “We need to give you the medicine so you can heal.”

  
“We’re not sick,” the Doctor said. “We’re a different species.”

  
Dr. Kylem struggled to stay calm. “Oh my…those who didn’t survive the medication. It wasn’t a failure of medication.”

  
“They were other species, too,” the Doctor said.

  
The skeleton looked horrified, or as horrified as a skeleton can look. “I am so sorry, miss. We thought you were sick, like the rest of our patients. Almost everyone here has the flesh disease. Some had the purple disease, but that results in an explosion far before it can be treated.”

  
“So…you aren’t trying to kill anyone?” Aradia asked.

  
“Of course not!” the skeleton who had cared for Aradia said. “Pardon me. I am Nurse Alep. We would never try to hurt anybody! We are a peaceful race.”

  
“Well,” the Doctor said. “That’s the mystery of the empty planet solved, then.”

  
“I’m sorry?” Dr. Kylem asked.

  
“Oh. Well, the entire universe thinks that this planet is empty except for the trees. People go missing sometimes. It’s a huge mystery.”

  
“The universe?” the nurse asked.

  
“Yeah,” Sollux said. “There’s a whole big universe out there and none of them have ever met you.”

  
“Really?” a shorter skeleton that looked vaguely feminine for some reason asked eagerly. “We…we could meet the universe?”

  
“Of course!” the Doctor said. “Build a rocket ship, fly on out there, find other species, you know, the whole deal.”

  
“That’s amazing!” Dr. Kylem said.

  
“Yeah, it is,” the Doctor said. “All of time and space, everything that is and could be and might be and can never be. All of it can be yours to see.”

  
“Thank you,” the nurse said, giving Aradia a bony hug.

  
“You’re welcome,” Aradia said awkwardly.

  
“Now, would you mind releasing the Hooloovoo?” the Doctor asked.

  
“Oh, of course,” Dr. Kylem said, untying the fourth alien.

  
“Why do you tie them down, anyways?” the Doctor asked.

  
“Many patients taking the medicine suffer from seizures in which they tend to harm themselves. We have to protect them somehow, and since we have only three nurses and two doctors for the whole hospital, this was the best solution.”

  
“Okay. Just…try to refrain from trying to help any more aliens, alright?”

  
“Of course. Thank you…you never told us your names.”

  
“I’m Aradia,” Aradia said.

  
“Sollux,” Sollux said, giving a little wave.

  
“And I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor said. “Happy to have helped.”

  
“Thank you, Doctor,” Dr. Kylem said.

 

“Any time,” the Doctor answered with a wide grin, leading Aradia and Sollux out of the cave.

 

***

 

Back at the TARDIS, the Doctor spoke up again. “Aradia,” he said. “Are you sure you’ve never seen me before? You look terribly familiar.”

 

“I never saw you before that day at the Green Sun.”

 

“Odd,” the Doctor said. “Now, where shall we go next?

 

***  
PREVIEW

***

 

_“ARADIA!”_

_  
“I’m stuck, it’s on my wings!”_

_  
“How did that happen?”_

_  
“I don’t know, but it’s going to get me!”_

_  
“Doctor, we have to save her!”_

_  
“Of course, but how?”_

_  
“Any way we can!”_

_  
“HELP! IT’S GOT ME!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor has now thought that he’s recognized Aradia twice. Should her recognize her or not?


	3. Metal Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cybermen, famously the emotionless, are starting yet again on yet another planet. The metal men with metal thoughts are coming and it seems that there’s nothing the Doctor, Aradia, and Sollux can do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this is yet another story that takes place in Chicago, but it’s my second favorite city. Much thanks to my friend and lab partner Daniel for the idea for this one and the title of the following chapter.

“I am doing this for you, my dear,” the old man says to the young boy. “You will never die, never age. Your heart won’t matter. Only your mind will be protected and the disease won’t be able to hurt you anymore. I promise this for you, my dear.”

The boy stirs in his sleep, as if he knows what is to be done. As if he knows of the horrors ahead. As if he knows what has been done to save him. 

***

 

“Want to guess where we’re going?” the Doctor asked Aradia. 

“Earth,” she guessed. 

“How’d you know that?” he asked. “You said you can’t see the future when the TARDIS is in flight.”

“You said it was your favorite,” Aradia answered, smiling. She had always had a thing for Earth, as well. It seemed a bit better than Alternia.

“Right! Well, next stop—Earth!” the Doctor exclaimed, slapping some buttons and pulling a lever. 

Sollux joined the other two, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Earth?” he asked, sounding mildly confused. “You mean…with humans?”

“Sollux, did you have that dream again?” Aradia asked with concern, seeing the bags under his eyes and the stress in his face. 

“No!” Sollux lied. He paused. “Yeah.”

“What dream?” the Doctor asked. 

“Just…a nightmare I have sometimes,” Sollux said, shrugging it off. “It doesn’t fucking matter, gog.”

“Calm down, Sollux,” Aradia said. “It was just a dream. Just a bad dream. You know it never happened.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” Sollux said. 

“The other dream?” Aradia asked. 

“Yeah,” Sollux shrugged. “Just…gets fucking worse every damn time.” 

“It was never your fault,” Aradia said. “Never, ever.” 

“Whatever,” he said, sighing. “Earth.”

“Yes, in the year 2318. Anyways. It’s very cool to see the future like this, up close and personal.” 

Aradia smiled widely. “I can’t wait!” 

The TARDIS spun through the Time Vortex, barreling towards a planet that could mean nothing but trouble. 

***

 

“Look! It’s a museum!” Aradia exclaimed, pointing to the Art Institute. “And a park!” She ran to the fountain in Millenium Park, running through the water pouring down the huge glass brick towers. She ignored the strange looks she was getting, shouting, “Sollux! Doctor! Come on, let’s go!” The Doctor, laughing, followed her and acted like a happy five-year-old in a fountain, while Sollux sat on a bench and looked sullen. 

A teenager, maybe sixteen, walked up to Sollux and said, “Are you cosplaying Homestuck? Cool! Sollux, right?” 

Sollux looked deeply freaked out. “Yeah, how did you know?” he asked suspiciously. 

“Wow, you’re good! I read it, come on! I’m current,” the teen said. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Sollux grumbled. “I’m Sollux. I’ve got to go. My friends Aradia and the Doctor are over there, so. Bye.” 

“Will you be at AWC?” Alex asked. 

“No,” Sollux said shortly. “I really have to go.” 

“Okay, see you around,” Alex said, walking away. Sollux walked up to Aradia and tapped her shoulder. 

“Some weirdo knew my name and asked if I read something called, ‘Homestuck’,” he said. 

“Funny,” Aradia said. “Someone asked me the same thing.”

“Weird,” Sollux said. 

“Hey, will you look at that?” the Doctor asked suddenly. “Looks like everyone’s got the same phone.”

“And how is that important?” Sollux asked. “Everyone’s got the fucking same husktop on Alternia.”

“Humans have lots of different companies for cell phones,” the Doctor said. “Verizon. T-Mobile. AT&T. O2. Vodafone. 3. EE. All sorts. And that’s just the carriers, not the makers. That’s companies like Samsung and Motorola. At least, those are the companies around the twenty-first century, which is the part of Earth History class I remember best. Nowadays, I think there’s…oh, never mind. But they all have the same one and that’s odd.”

“Hey, can I see your phone?” Aradia asked a passing pedestrian. 

“No! What the hell?” the person asked, walking away quickly. 

“They’re so fucking possessive,” Sollux remarked. 

Aradia shrugged. “You know, I bet we could find a place where there’s a bunch of people who are all really nice and accepting and stuff.” 

“Wait!” the Doctor said suddenly. “What’s today’s date?” 

Aradia looked around. A sign on a bank said that it was August 13th. “I don’t know how to say the month, but it’s spelled A-U-G-U-S-T, and it’s the thirteenth.” 

“This poster is advertising a ‘meetup’ of some sort for this ‘Homestuck’ thing over by The Bean. I bet people there would be willing to let me have a look at their mobiles.” 

“Then let’s go!” Aradia said, grabbing Sollux’s hand and pulling him after the Doctor.

“Doctor,” Sollux began, “What’s The Bean?” 

“It’s a huge mirrored statue in this park that looks like a giant kidney bean. I don’t remember the proper name, but it might be ‘Cloud Gate’. It’s known as The Bean,” the Doctor answered. 

“Cool! So there’ll be a bunch of people…who look like characters from this thing there?” Aradia asked curiously. 

“Yep.” 

And, in fact, there were about fifty of them milling around the giant statue, and more coming. Aradia ran up to the statue and stared. “It’s amazing. It’s…look at it! Isn’t this amazing?” 

“Aradia, how do you have such a positive fucking attitude about everything?” Sollux asked grumpily. 

“How don’t you? The world is full of beauty. Wherever you look, there’s something new, something interesting, something beautiful. Everything has beauty, you just have to find it! And I’m good at finding it.”

“What is beautiful about fucking Daleks?” 

“Their ships. Their design. Not their instinct to kill, not the fact that they are designed to kill, not any of that. But their design has a very basic elegance.” 

“Fine. What’s beautiful about shouting?”

“The emotions behind it.” 

“What about…death?”

“Moving on. The natural cycle.” 

“Fine. Uh…what is fucking beautiful about disease?”

“The virus itself. The host is horrible, the fact that someone is getting sick and maybe dying is awful. But the virus that is working its way though the body, its elegance is amazing.”

“You’re fucking nuts.” 

“Hey!” Aradia protested jokingly. Then she smiled. “I’m going to go borrow a cell phone.”

She went up to someone dressed precisely like her. “Hey!” she said perkily. “Can I borrow your cell?” 

“Sure,” the girl said, tossing Aradia the phone. “Nice costume, by the way.”

“Thanks!” real Aradia said, catching the phone. “I’ll be back in just two seconds. Really.”

“Okay, cool!” the other girl said. 

Aradia tossed the phone to the Doctor, who poked at it with the sonic screwdriver thing. “We need to buy a phone,” the Doctor said. “I can’t figure this out without deleting some information or breaking the mobile.” 

“Right, I’ll give the girl back her phone,” Sollux said. “Wait, which one is it?”

“Come on,” Aradia said. “I’ll show you.” She took his hand again and jogged over to the girl in the costume. 

“Hey!” Aradia said. “Here’s your phone.” 

“Yeah, thanks,” the girl said. “Nice wings, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Aradia said. 

“Oh, are you and him really dating, or do you just ship it?” 

“We…ship it!” Aradia said, using her enthusiasm to make up for the lack of understanding. 

“Cool, me too!” the girl said. “Hey, can I get a picture?” 

“Uh…sorry, no,” Sollux said. “We have to go.”

“Oh, too bad,” the girl said. “See you!” 

“See you!” Aradia said, pulling Sollux back towards the Doctor.

“Let’s go to a store and use a trial phone,” the Doctor said. “I need to find out what this company is up to.” 

“Why would they be up to something?” Aradia asked. “Maybe they just make really good cell phones.” 

“There was something in those phones,” the Doctor said. “I’m sure it’s in the computers, too. Maybe even TVs.” 

“That sounds ominous,” Sollux commented pessimistically. 

“Suppose so,” the Doctor said. “But it’s interesting!” 

“Fine, fine, whatever,” Sollux said. “There’s a computer shop over there. Let’s go.” 

“Earth is neat,” Aradia said. 

The Doctor walked ahead of the other two into the shop and proceeded to type a series of commands, ridiculously fast, into the computer. 

Sollux followed to Doctor’s example, hacking the computer’s inner works. Er—no, he was just playing Tetris. 

“Well,” the Doctor said. “The computers have a kind of Wi-fi receiver that adds a subtle mind-control signal to all Internet actions.”

“For example?” Aradia asked. 

“If I run a search for ‘Tetris’, there’s a secondary signal received and transmitted that says…well, I don’t quite know that yet. But I’m willing to bet that it’ll get stronger.” 

“And that means?”

“Mind controlling everyone who has cell phones, computers, TV’s. That’s a rather lot of people.”

“What for?”

“Good question. I have no good answer.”

“So let’s find out!” Aradia said excitedly. 

***

 

“Dear…” the man said. “You know this is a bad idea.”

“Maybe it is, darling. But there’s nothing else we can do.”

“Do I really have to go first?” the man asked again. “I’m just not really sure.” 

“You know that this is the only way,” the other man said gently. The boy slumbering on the bed next to them shifts, his face twisting into a pained expression of nervousness and fear. Something in his dreams is causing him to worry, as if the future is starting to make itself clear to him.

***

 

“Okay, the signal is telling everyone to ship those mobiles all over the world. For free,” the Doctor said. “It’s some sort of world domination plan.”

“That’s stereotypical,” Sollux said. “What do they want with Earth? It’s not like the whole world’s a battleship, not like Alternia.” 

“I have no idea,” the Doctor said. “The owner seems to be some guy called Jay Altagrem. He’s got it all, too. Married, nice house. The son has a serious heart condition and cancer. He’s not expected to live long.” 

“Maybe he’s going to try something to save his son?” Aradia suggested. 

“Could be, but it won’t be that cut-and-dried,” the Doctor said. 

“Is it ever?” Sollux asked rhetorically. 

“Nope,” Aradia answered jokingly. She smiled, as usual. “Let’s go find out what!” 

“How?” Sollux asked. 

“I’ve got his address,” the Doctor said. “We could go talk to them.”

“Or we could hack the computer database and search his personal files,” Sollux suggested. 

“Right. You get right on that. According to the info, today is a charity event for the family, hosted at their mansion, so I’ll go there. Aradia—”

“I’m going to go to the factories and look around for something suspicious,” Aradia said. “Man, I feel like I’m in an episode of Troll Supernatural.”

“What’s that?” the Doctor asked curiously. 

“Maybe later,” Aradia said. 

“Fair point. Off we go!” the Doctor called happily, and the three dispersed throughout Chicago in 2318. 

***

 

Sollux was probably too good at stealing for his own good. But he figured that one computer, from the shop, to solve a mind-control problem, wouldn’t be too bad. So he hacked into the store computers, tweaked itinerary, and deactivated the antitheft device to take the cheapest laptop in the Purple Tech store. 

He walked back to the park where they’d been earlier, to this huge field with a grid over it and some weird swoopy building at one end. He opened the laptop, turned it on, and worked around the password. He opened the hard drive, cracked his knuckles, and began to type. 

A guard was watching Sollux, unbeknownst to him. A guard with a time Purple Tech logo on his uniform. A guard who was listening when Sollux muttered, “It’s like Big Ancestor, fingers in every pie…” A guard who grew suspicious with Sollux’s incredible typing speed and constant swearing. And a guard who eventually picked up a cell phone and called Central Security, ready to report this suspicious activity. 

But Sollux just kept typing away, hacking the central programming until he came upon the mind-control bit of the programming. He opened the file and examined it, his brow furrowing more with each line of code he deciphered. He reached he bottom and, putting it all together, said, “Ho-ly shit.” 

***

 

The Doctor felt nervous, going in alone. He was used to having a friend by his side, but Sollux was oddly antisocial (he seemed to have some sort of bipolar disease) and Aradia had volunteered to go off on her own. So the Doctor was going to crash a party, find the family, and figure out what was going on all on his own. They’d agreed to meet up at the house at ten PM. Which left three hours to figure out what the hell was going on here. 

It was unnatural. The Doctor could feel the signal poking around in his mind, and he was certain that his psychic new friends could feel it too. He spared a moment to wonder about the nightmares Sollux was talking about. Something that had never happened and something that wasn’t his fault. The Doctor knew next to nothing abut Sollux and Aradia’s past, but he knew that trolls in general were a psychologically troubled species. It could be anything. 

Shifting his thoughts back to the present, the Doctor flashed his psychic paper at the guard and walked right in. He checked the paper, curious as to what he was this time. Apparently he was an important executive at the Purple Tech Corporation. That could lead to trouble if the executive in question showed up, but the Doctor was sure that no one would notice. 

He had developed a habit of talking to himself recently, so he quietly muttered things he noticed as he walked around the house, searching for the Jay Altagrem person and his husband. “Rich, very rich. Clearly from this Purple Tech computer. Everyone seems to have it. So, they’re making money from that. But the mind control signal suggests something more. But what?” 

He bumped into someone and said, “Oh, I’m terribly sorry! Are you alright?” The man nodded, walking away. Then something clicked in the Doctor’s head. “Pardon! Pardon me!” he shouted. “Are you Mr. Altagrem?” 

“Yes, and I’m busy,” the man said. 

“Oh, this’ll only take a second,” the Doctor said, flashing his psychic paper. “I just wanted to ask about your boy.”

“I will not discuss my son to guests at a charity event,” the man said, walking away in anger. 

“Wait! But…” the Doctor said. That…that was useless, he thought. Maybe I can talk to his husband. 

The inventor of everything Purple Tech approached another man, exchanged a few words, kissed him, and walked away. “Must be—” the Doctor said aloud, before realizing that he was alone, again. Must be the husband. 

“Excuse me,” the Doctor said. “Are you Jay Altagrem’s husband?”

“I am,” the man said. “My name’s Luke, how can I help you?” He seemed much kinder than Jay. 

“I just wanted to ask you a few questions,” the Doctor said, smiling his most trustworthy smile. 

“Sure,” the man, Luke, said warily. “What about?”

“This is about your son,” the Doctor said. 

“About Kyle?” Luke asked, immediately on-guard. 

“Yes.”

“I…well…” Luke tried to say, shifting nervously. “I…I’m not at liberty.”

“You can trust me,” the Doctor said. “I’m the Doctor.”

“You’re a doctor?” the other man asked, looking relieved and worried at the same time. “Can you help my son?” 

“Possibly,” the Doctor said. “Can you tell me about his condition?”

“It’s a heart condition. We adopted him and he turned out to have this horrible condition and there’s no treatment. We can’t find a heart donor and we’re running out of time.”

“Your husband has invented so many things, surely he has some ideas?”

Luke looked deeply uncomfortable. “There is one thing we’re trying…but never mind.”

“Like I said, you can trust me. I’m the Doctor.”

Luke looked left and right, biting his lip and contemplating his choices. “I’ll show you,” he said. “But you have to swear not to tell anyone.” 

“Of course,” the Doctor said. 

He followed Luke through the mansion and to a small room in the back. “It was Jay’s idea,” Luke said. “I’m to go first. Then our son. Then supposedly, everyone. No more children will have to die. No one else will get sick. Jay plans to be the last.” 

The Doctor, noticing Luke’s body language, asked, “But you’re having doubts?”

Luke sighed, and it was a tired, worried sigh. “Yes.” 

***

 

Aradia knew that she was hugely conspicuous, what with the large horns and wings and god tier PJ’s and gray skin and now-burgundy irises. (She was a lowblood and seven and a half sweeps old, and only just now her eyes were finally maroon.) But she’d taken a uniform from the lost and found and she’d pulled a floppy hat over her horns and face. Her wings were folded under the uniform, which was unpleasant, but at least she could get in and investigate. She loved exploring. 

Aradia walked into the factory with a shift of workers who were coming in. She skipped quickly over the computer assembly lines, only pausing to note that the parts were mostly bright purple and, if the Doctor was right, “slightly alien.” By which he apparently meant “ahead of the times enough that some aliens are involved but not to the point where there’s some serious time travel involved.” She moved on to a darker section of the factory, where only a few workers entered. She fell into line with the other workers and followed them through the door. 

Inside the door, strangely shaped metal parts were lined up. Brainwashed-looking people assembled them into things that looked suspiciously like arms and legs. The new workers walking in wore terrified looks, and some looked like they were about to run away. But they were all holding cell phones, and Aradia could feel the nosy signals invading her brain space. She shook her head to clear it and quietly stepped form the line of workers who were still conscious of their actions to the line of very brainwashed people. She pretended to assemble, but she was really watching the others. She noticed a pattern of two arm-things, two leg-things, a torso-thing, and something that looked disturbingly like a head. 

She shivered. She turned to her left and asked the worker, “Hey, what are we making?” 

The woman didn’t answer. 

“Are you alright? Do you want to be here?” Aradia persisted, but there was still no answer. Aradia set her shoulders back and walked to the end of the line, where she finally saw the finished product. 

She might not know what Earth was supposed to look like in 2318, but this was definitely not supposed to be here. 

***

 

Sollux was not much of a runner, but he ran faster than ever to the mansion where he was supposed to meet the Doctor. 

Aradia gave up on trying to blend in and flew as fast as she could to the mansion of Jay Altagrem. 

The Doctor ran out to the front lawn, ready to meet his two friends. 

Aradia wasn’t exactly the best at flying, so she wasn’t ready. She crashed into the Doctor just as he crashed into Sollux. Everyone started talking at once. 

“At the factories, there’s these robot human things, and they’ve got brainwashed people putting them together and I think they’re going to turn people into those things oh my gog—”

“Jay’s husband says that this is to save their son but it’s not true immortality, it’s a for of life but it’s not real life because they lose all their emotions and—” 

“In the computer coding there’s a program and when it’s activated everyone will march to the factories and they’re going to ‘not resist the change from mortal to immortal and call me crazy but that sounds really fucking wrong—”

“Everybody quiet!” the Doctor said. “I think all of our findings come to one thing—these metal men.”

“What are they?” Aradia asked. 

“Cybermen. There is a living brain in those things, but there’s an emotional inhibitor that blocks their emotions. No happy, not sad, no joy, no grief, nothing. Just…existing.”

“And they’re doing this to the world why?”

“To save their son,” the Doctor answered. “The child is going to die otherwise.”

“So…how?”

“The computers. There’s a line of computer coding that will make everyone walk into those factories like baabeasts.” 

“Okay. Okay. There’s a solution for this,” the Doctor said. 

And just then, a stomping sound resounded through the yard. Of the three, standing in a circle, Aradia was the last to see. Because one of them grabbed her from behind and pulled her off the ground, kicking and fighting. “GET OFF ME!” she shouted. 

“ARADIA!” Sollux screamed

“I’m stuck, it’s on my wings!” she answered, wincing in pain

“How did that happen?” the Doctor asked. 

“I don’t know, but it’s going to get me!” Aradia shouted. 

“Doctor, we have to save her!” Sollux pleaded.

“Of course, but how?” the Doctor answered in panic.

“Any way we can!” Sollux yelled angrily. 

“HELP! IT’S GOT ME!” Aradia screamed

“ARADIA!” Sollux and the Doctor screamed. 

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should the Cybermen spread to another planet?


	4. Heart of Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone knows that they Cybermen have no emotions. So after the Doctor, Aradia, and Sollux escape Jay Altagrem’s metal grasp, can the single Cyberman who can feel save the world?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much credit to my friend and lab partner Daniel once again for this idea and the title of this one. I forgot to mention that this is sort of an AU because Sollux isn’t blind due to the fact that I forgot and it’s too late now. Much thanks to whoever is reading this! There won't be one next week because I won't have Internet access. Please review/comment on the question because I do take that into account when writing the next one.

The metal men are closing in, but they have no brains. They are shells, ready to consume the people around them. All because my dear Luke wouldn’t cooperate, Jay thinks. If only Luke had gone first, everyone would’ve followed. But he’d refused, saying that he simply wasn’t sure. Jay Altagrem’s husband, the one everyone looks up to. Jay supposes that it must be hard, being Luke. Maybe harder than being Jay. Now Luke will just be one of the crowd. It saddens Jay, that soon his husband will be just like the rest of the metal men. 

But at least they will all be alive. And they will all be together. 

***

Sollux threw the laptop across the lawn. “FUCK!” he shouted. “They’ve got her and now she’s going to become one of those metal things.” 

“No, she won’t,” the Doctor said. “She’s not human. And they’re Cybermen; a human brain in a metal body with all the emotions removed. Anyways, teenagers never become Cybermen.” 

“So? She’s got a brain, they’ll convert her and I’ll lose her.”

The Doctor gave Sollux a significant look, one that Sollux didn’t catch. “We better find her and then we can stop the rest of them.”

Sollux nodded, getting a calmer head on his shoulders. “Okay. We can track these metal things back to the factories and then…I guess then we just look for AA?” 

“Exactly what I was thinking,” the Doctor said, smiling. He grabbed Sollux’s hand and pulled him after the Cybermen and into a chaotic world. 

***

“This one is an unknown upgrade. Bring to the leader,” the Cyberman said of Aradia. Aradia was trying not to panic. She wasn’t afraid of death anymore—there were things worse than death. At least they weren’t turning her into one of them. She just had to stall for time and wait for the Doctor and Sollux to pull something with computers and save her. She noticed at least five alarms on the door alone that seemed to trigger based on face recognition. Her situation seemed impossible, but she was determined to escape. 

She arrived at the office of Mr. Jay Altagrem and the Cybermen marched her in. The man looked up curiously, examining her. “Well,” he finally said. “You can’t be a cosplayer. You could never alter your own biology like that.” He walked up to her and rubbed one finger across her hand roughly. Aradia winced at his touch. “Real skin,” he muttered. He looked at her horns, tugged at her hair. “Real hair, real horns. Real yellow fingernails.” She felt like screaming. What was he doing? Of course she was real! She was still in the factory uniform and her wings were still folded out of sight. Hopefully he didn’t know that she was god tier. How could he? 

“I’ve heard of you,” Jay said. “Trolls. Some of the teenagers talk about a web comic called Homestuck with you in them. It’s fiction. Yet here you are, plain as day. Which one are you?”

“Mizune Justele,” Aradia lied, unable to come up with a second fake name. 

“No,” Jay said, shaking his head. “No, it’s not. There’re twenty-four of you, and none of them are named Mizune Justele.”

“Fine. My name is Bevise Jasmin,” Aradia lied again. 

“No,” Jay insisted. “Tell me which one you are.”

Aradia figured there was no more use in lying. “Aradia Megido,” she said. 

He nodded. “The fairy one. Tell me, where are your wings?”

She winced. What if he cut them off? But she answered. “You can’t see them right now.”

“And why not?”

“Because I’m wearing this factory uniform over them.” 

“And you are still wearing your…‘god tier pajamas’?” 

“Yes,” Aradia said. She’d thrown on the uniform over her usual clothes. 

“Then let me see your wings,” the man insisted. 

Aradia slipped off the baggy extra layer to reveal her Maid of Time clothes and large red wings. They fluttered and spread wide. Jay stood up again and examined the wings, never touching them. “Amazing,” he said. “Now, if only I could transplant these into one of my Cybermen.”

“So that’s what you’re calling these metal things?” Aradia asked. “Cybermen?” 

“Yes,” the man answered, looking upset. “But they are more than metal things. They are the future of the human race. No longer will people be left without husbands or wives or children or parents. My Cybermen are immortal. They never sicken or die. No one will be left alone again.”

Aradia tried to piece it together. “Your son,” she said. “He’s dying.”

Anger flashed over Jay’s face. “He is not dying. He will be one of my Cybermen. Luke will too. And none of us will ever have to die. Now wait there. We will have to adapt to upgrade you, but it will not be impossible.” He stood and left the room. 

Aradia took a deep breath and silently begged Sollux and the Doctor to arrive soon. 

***

“She’s in the office,” the Doctor said. “She must be.” 

“Then let’s go!” Sollux exclaimed. “I can disable some of the alarms from here.” He picked up the laptop and, hacking into the system, he shut down about half of the security. 

“Can’t get the rest,” Sollux said. “Self-contained.”

“That’s what the sonic is for!” the Doctor smiled. The two of them walked up the two flights of stairs and to the room, the point at which the alarms were still armed. The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at the bundles of wires until the door opened and Aradia rushed out. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said. “They’re trying to adapt to upgrade me!”

“Okay, let’s go,” the Doctor said. Sollux ran and Aradia flew as they left the building.

“I have to go the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “We need to fly right into the upgrade center and the sonic won’t work to get us in.”

“Over by the park,” Aradia said. She flew up higher, scanning the area with her eyes. It was getting dark, maybe nine or so at night. But she spotted it. “There!” she shouted, pointing to the blue box. They ran for it, and opening the doors, the three of them stormed inside, out of breath and slightly confused. “What do we do?” Sollux asked. 

“Get back to the factory!” the Doctor shouted. 

“Are you crazy? We just escaped that place!” Sollux yelled over the noises from outside. 

“We have to stop them!” the Doctor shouted. 

Aradia grabbed Sollux’s shoulder as the box stopped rattling for just a second. Three hard, metal knocks rang throughout the room. 

“Who’s there?” the Doctor asked doubtfully. 

“I am a Cyberman,” a robotic voice answered. “Let me in.”

“And why should we do that?” Aradia asked. 

“Because I have emotions,” the Cyberman answered. 

***

Sollux took several steps away.

Aradia stared at the door. 

The Doctor opened the door. 

The Cyberman marched in. 

“Okay then,” Sollux said. “Doctor, you said that they Cybermen have no emotions. If they do, don’t they…explode or something?” 

“Yeah,” the Doctor said. “So…uh…this shouldn’t happen. This can’t possibly be real.”

“Well, it is, so what do we do?” Sollux asked, 

“Talk to it,” the Doctor answered. 

“Uh…what’s your name?” Aradia asked. 

“I am Liandra. Liandra Carlson.” 

“How old are you?” the Doctor asked, beginning to form a theory. 

“Fourteen.”

“She’s a teenager. One of the most powerfully emotional times in anyone’s life. The emotions are so deeply tied to everything else that they can’t be separated out. Teenagers usually don’t become Cybermen.” 

“What am I?” the Cyberman asked. 

“Uh…” the Doctor said. Aradia caught his panicked look and took over. 

“I’m sorry,” she began. “But you’re Cyberman. It’s a human brain in a metal body with the emotions removed.”

“Then…how can I feel?” the Cyberman, no, Liandra, asked. 

“We don’t know,” the Doctor admitted as the TARDIS landed in the middle of the factory. “But we are going to find out.”

***

“Jay, you don’t have to do this,” Luke insisted, practically clinging to his husband’s arm. “We could stop this now.”

“Then our son will die,” Jay fought back. “He will die unless this keeps going.” 

“But what’s the use of life with no feeling?” Luke asked. 

“At least we’ll have life!” Jay shouted. 

“But it will be like being dead!” Luke yelled. 

“I don’t care! I have to save our son!” Jay retaliated. 

“Fine! But I can’t be a part of this anymore!” Luke screamed, stomping out of the room. 

Jay looked sad, but ordered a Cyberman next to him, “Upgrade him.”

A shout came from outside the room. “WHAT?” Luke shouted. The Cyberman marched Luke into the office. “Why are you doing this?” Luke begged, tears streaming down his face. “I’m your husband! WHY?”

“Because I have to,” Jay answered sadly as the Cyberman marched Luke downstairs to be converted. 

***

“I know everything,” Liandra said. “I know the plans. I know what is to be done.” 

“Well, what’s the plan?” the Doctor asked. 

“The plan is to upgrade Chicago and use the influence of Jay Altagrem, Luke Greene, and Purple Tech to convert the world. Rockets will be launched to Mars to convert the Martians as of tomorrow morning.”

Liandra froze for a second, then moved again. “There has been a change. Luke Greene no longer has a place in the plans.” 

“Oh my gog,” Aradia said, remembering the kind-faced man who had passed the office when she’d been waiting for her friends. 

“Did they convert him?” the Doctor asked. 

Liandra nodded. “He is one of us. He thinks like us. He is one of us.”

“No, you’re not like them,” Aradia said. “Keeping thinking that you’re one of them, and you’ll become one of them. Remember that you’re not one of them. You’re still human.”

“I am human,” Liandra repeated. “I am human and I will remain human.”

“Yes, exactly,” the Doctor said. “You can fight on the side of the humans. You can infiltrate the Cybermen and help us beat them.” 

“I am excited about this role,” Liandra said robotically. “I can defeat the Cybermen. Can you make me human again?”

“Uh…” the Doctor said. “I…no. We can’t give you a body again. But you can remain a Cyberman with emotions for as long as you want.”

“If I am immortal, how will I completely my natural life cycle and die?” Liandra asked. 

“You won’t,” the Doctor said. “Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of company. Captain Jack Harkness. Other Cybermen. Other immortal…things.” 

“I will not die,” Liandra said. “You are close to immortal. We have much information on you. You are the enemy of the Daleks. They call you the Predator. If you the Predator of the Daleks, what are you to Cybermen?”

“The enemy,” the Doctor said. “I will beat the Cybermen.”

“Will I die?” Liandra asked.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor answered. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t know.” 

“I will die,” Liandra said. “But that is okay. I have no life if I have nothing but an empty soul.”

“No, no, don’t think like that,” the Doctor protested. “You have life.”

“I have nothing. My family and friends are gone. I know that many are dead. Some have been upgraded. I am alone. I have nothing to live for.” 

“You’ve got a whole world to save!” Aradia exclaimed. “I used to think that there was nothing worth doing, but then I realized that there is everything to live for! Friends, family, discovery, helping people, there’s so much to live for!”

“You have the Doctor and this friend,” Liandra replied. “You have so much you could do.” 

“You do too! Being immortal can seem hopeless sometimes, but as long as you have hope, you’ll be fine.” 

“I’m Sollux, first of all,” Sollux said. “Second, why don’t we take care of the more pressing problem before we figure out this existential crisis?” 

“Fair point!” the Doctor said. “Liandra, we need you to cover us until we reach Jay’s office.”

Liandra froze. “This contradicts my central programming. I cannot condone anything that may result in the death of our leader.” She sounded…robotic. 

She unfroze. “No! I will bring down the Cybermen! I can contradict the central programming!” 

She marched out of the TARDIS, which had landed in the abandoned basement. The Doctor, Aradia and Sollux followed her, ready to fight every threat. 

***

The sick child, Kyle, looked up at one of his fathers. “Daddy?” he asked. “Why are you here? It’s so late.”

Luke looked sadly at his son. “I have to go somewhere. I won’t see you for a while. But your dad will be here soon.”

“What about you, Daddy? When will you be back?” Kyle asked. 

“A while,” Luke said vaguely. “Don’t worry, I won’t be long.”

“Are you sure?” Kyle asked nervously. 

“Positive. I love you, Kyle.”

“Love you too, Daddy.” 

***

“We don’t have much time,” the Doctor said. “We have to get to the office and shut down the Cybermen before Jay converts too many more people.”

“The Rocket has launched,” Liandra stated suddenly. “It is unstoppable.”

“Fuck,” Sollux cursed. “If we just shut down the Cybermen on Earth, what the hell’s the point?” 

“The signal should shut down all the Cybermen,” the Doctor said. “If we do it right.” 

“The boy will be converted in thirty minutes,” Liandra said. 

“We have thirty minutes if we want to save that Kyle kid,” Sollux said. “Less.” 

“What about Luke? Luke Greene?” Aradia asked. 

“He is currently being converted. He will be upgraded. The process is now irreversible,” Liandra answered. 

Aradia put a hand up to her mouth, eyes widening. “I guess…we’re too late for him.”

“Yeah…” the Doctor said. “But we can still save Kyle. We have half an hour and counting. Let’s go!”

The four of them ran up the stairs and faced their first obstacle: the people to be upgraded. They were all holding cell phones up to their ears and wearing blank looks on their faces. “Like sheep,” the Doctor said. “They can’t see us, don’t worry.”

“What would happen if we canceled the cell phone signal?” Sollux asked. “Brought down the towers and shit?”

“That would free everyone’s minds,” the Doctor answered. “If we could…hm. Sollux, could you do that with the laptop?”

“Why don’t you, with the sonic whatever the hell that thing is?” Sollux asked grumpily.

“Because I’m very busy!” the Doctor exclaimed as the Cyberman in front of them turned around and said, “You are not programmed. You must be upgraded.”

“No! You can’t upgrade us!” Aradia screamed. “We aren’t human!” 

“Your brain structure is similar to a human’s.” 

The Doctor realized that he had to stall. “Take us to see Jay Altagrem! Because we aren’t human so you can’t upgrade us. You’ll have to adapt around us. And to do that, you better take us to your leader! Oh, that’s a great phrase. A bit cliché, but quite fun to say.” 

“You will follow me. Unit 563-Beta will come as well. You are needed in control. You will be upgraded to Cybercaptain.”

“Yes,” Liandra answered. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Liandra’s face couldn’t move, Aradia would’ve sworn she saw a scared look on the Cyberman’s face. 

***

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Jay asked with a touch of humor in his voice. 

“Two trolls and an undefined species,” the Cyberman that was not Liandra answered. 

Jay shot an evil look at the Cyberman. “Leave, both of you,” he ordered. Liandra and the other Cyberman stomped out, leaving the Doctor, Aradia, and Sollux in the office with someone who wanted them all dead. 

“I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor said. “This is Sollux and—”

“Yes, I know that the girl is Aradia,” Jay said. “If you recall, she was here earlier. But you, young man. Yes, you’re something else.” Sollux didn’t move as their enemy roughly scraped a fingernail over Sollux’s skin, examining him the way he examined Aradia. “You’re the psychic one. Sollux Captor, if I’m not mistaken.” 

Sollux nodded stiffly. “I can fucking kick your ass with my psychics, so don’t fucking push it.” 

“I believe they’re called psionics,” Jay corrected smugly. 

“Well, fuck you, you don’t have any,” Sollux said irritably. “And I do. Aradia does too. And she can fucking time travel. So we’ve got the fucking upper hand here, asshole.” 

“Sollux,” Aradia cautioned. “Don’t push it.”

“Yes, Sollux, don’t push it,” Jay mimicked. 

Aradia glared at the man, but she didn’t say anything. She just looked angry. Suddenly, a book jumped off the bookshelf and landed on the desk. “Like I said,” she repeated. “Don’t push it.” 

“What was the point of this?” the Doctor asked. “What was the point? Your son will live forever, but you will never be able to properly see him anymore. You said it yourself! Everyone here is metal. There aren’t families! There aren’t emotions! Nothing but a world of cold steel and cold people. How could your tell your husband or your child from the rest? How will you tell your mother or father from a person in the crowd? You can’t! There is no way to separate the ones you love from the rest. But that wouldn’t matter, right? Because you won’t love anymore! You did this because you love your child, but once you and your husband and your child are all Cybermen, you won’t care about your child anymore! Not about your husband, not about anyone! All the love that motivated you to do this will just…disappear and you’ll be left alone. But you won’t care, because you won’t be able to care! You won’t love, you won’t have anything! And what’s life without love?” 

“Love doesn’t matter if there is no life.”

“Death is part of life! No one wants to die. But that’s part of life! You spend your whole life fighting death; of course it’s terrifying! But it’s natural. Everyone dies, and it’s sad. It’s horrible when someone you love dies. But that’s okay! Pain and loss and grief are part of being human, part of being whatever species you happen to be! All of this pain and fear you’re feeling over your son, that’s so normal and so human! But beating death and disease? That’s inhuman. That’s not right.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care that Luke is gone! IT DOESN’T MATTER!” Jay shouted. 

“I think it does,” the Doctor said solemnly. “Now, unless you call this off right now and stop this whole thing, we’ll have to stop you.”

“You can’t win against my Cybermen!” Jay protested angrily. “They will destroy you in seconds!”

“LIANDRA!” Aradia shouted. The Cyberman that was their ally stomped in and stood next to her friends. 

“I know the weaknesses of the Cybermen,” Liandra stated in her metallic voice. “I can bring them down.” 

“Not if I bring you down first!” Jay shouted, dashing for his computer. But Sollux was faster than him. He opened the stolen laptop and started typing frantically, trying to throw up some firewalls. No, strike that, plant a good virus. He had a few mentally saved that he quickly threw together on the laptop and sent to Jay’s computer. 

“AAAAAHHHHH!” Jay screeched angrily, slamming his laptop shut. He picked up a small pistol from his desk and held it up. “But I can still stop you!” 

“I’ll regenerate,” the Doctor said. 

“Will he?” Jay asked, pointing the gun at Sollux. Jay grinned as Sollux winced. “Your psionics can’t stop a speeding bullet in time!” 

I’ll die if I shove him out of the way and take the bullet, because that would be heroic, Aradia thought. Doesn’t matter. If it comes down to it, I’ll save him. I’ll always save him. 

“That’s a bad idea,” the Doctor cautioned. “We’ve got a Cyberman on our side, remember.”

“Unit 563-Beta, respond to your leader! Kill these three!” Jay ordered Liandra. 

“I will not,” Liandra said, and she looked like she was straining against something physically binding her as she walked up to Jay and placed her weapon hand on his shoulder. Blue electric sparks shot up and down his body as she added, “And my name is Liandra.” 

***

In no time, Sollux and the Doctor had dismantled the mind-control signal. Mostly the Doctor, but Sollux was a brilliant hacker as well. 

The other signal was the signal that was connecting the Cybermen. Without it, the chemicals keeping the brain alive would stop circulating and every Cyberman would die an almost painless death. The Doctor pulled Liandra off the usual signal to make Unit 563-Beta completely independent. He quickly abolished the other signal and Cybermen all over the world collapsed, dead. 

That just left Liandra. 

“I do not think that there is anything left for me here,” Liandra said to Aradia as Sollux and the Doctor hacked away at the computer. Figuratively speaking, of course. 

“Don’t think like that!” Aradia insisted. 

“I don’t mean that there is nothing for me at all. I mean that there is nothing for me here. There may be something for me out there,” Liandra answered, looking up at the stars. “Perhaps there is a place where I can be changed to look less robotic. Receive a new body. Perhaps remove the emotional inhibitor.” 

“That sounds nice,” Aradia said dreamily. “Just…start over like that.”

“I would enjoy that,” Liandra said. “Do you think I would be able to?”

“Of course,” Aradia said. “Of course you could.”

“Done!” the Doctor shouted. “Come on, off we go.”

“Wait,” Sollux said. “What about the kid?”

“He can’t recover from his condition,” the Doctor said sadly. “He has days left to him.”

“So we didn’t save him after all,” Sollux said. “Or Luke.” 

“We saved him from a fate worse than death,” the Doctor answered. 

Sollux nodded. 

“Doctor,” Aradia said. “What about Liandra?”

“She can come with us if she likes,” the Doctor said. 

“Well then ask her!” Aradia exclaimed. 

“Liandra,” the Doctor said. “Do you want to come with us?”

Liandra looked at her old world, then at the Doctor. It was time to make her choice. 

“I would like to leave this planet,” she said. “But I do not know if I wish to travel more.”

“You can decided when we get where we’re going,” the Doctor said. “Until then…Geronimo!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Should Liandra stay with the crew of the TARDIS?


	5. The Endless War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> World War I. The war to end all wars. But what if it truly never ends, truly the war to end all wars? What if World Was I just keeps on going?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my family for helping me come up with the villain for this episode. Also so much thanks to all of you reading this! Please leave a comment and/or answer the question at the end, it really means a lot to me!

World War I. The war to end all wars, they called it. It ended on November 11th, 1918, with the treaty of Versailles. Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary fought the United Kingdom, France, Japan, the United States and Russia. It started with an assassination of an arch-duke. It lasted four years. But you know this, if you’ve taken a history class or two. 

But it was never a fixed point. Never something that had to happen. 

Therefore, it was something that never had to end. 

***

“To Earth! 1918!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Right at the end of World War I.”

“What’s that?” Aradia asked curiously. 

“It’s a huge, worldwide war on Earth in the early twentieth century. A whole bunch of countries declared war on each other and it turned into a huge mess.”

“So why are we going there?” Sollux asked. 

“To see the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. It’s a huge event, lots of fun!”

“To see a treaty being signed?”

“Well…yes.”

Aradia smiled. “Don’t be such a pessimist, Sollux. It’ll be fun!” 

Sollux rolled his eyes. 

“Where’s Liandra?” Aradia asked. 

“I don’t know. Her new body doesn’t need sleep, just charging.” 

“Hello,” Liandra said, wandering into the control room, and her voice sounded almost human. Her new body, from far in the future, was very humanlike. The hair didn’t grow, and the eyes didn’t blink, but it would work until her brain died naturally, as if she was a human. “Where are we going?”

“Earth,” the Doctor told her. “1918.”

“World War I,” Liandra identified quickly. “We learned about that in sixth grade. World Wars I and II.”

“What about the second one?” Sollux asked. 

“It was a lot bigger and about ‘racial purity’,” the Doctor answered. 

“Hitler from Germany attacked just about everyone else, except Italy, who was its ally, led by Mousselini. And Japan. Then we allied with the UK, France, a bunch of other countries, and Russia, led by Stalin,” Liandra rattled off. 

“You like history, don’t you?” Aradia questioned. 

“It is…was my favorite subject,” Liandra answered. “What about you?”

“Sollux and I never went to school,” Aradia said. “We don’t really have school on our planet.”

“Wow, lucky,” Liandra said enviously. “I hate…hated school.” 

“Well, hands-on history lesson right here!” the Doctor exclaimed happily. “The Treaty of Versailles. And…we’re here!” The TARDIS landed and the four of them clambered out into the middle of a battle. 

***

“What?” the Doctor asked. “It’s supposed to be over! It’s November eleventh, I triple-checked this time! What’s going on here?” 

“AAHH!” Aradia screamed, a bullet just passing her arm. “We can get out of here now.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Sollux agreed. Grabbing his hand, Aradia pulled him along while Liandra and the Doctor followed. 

“Okay. What the fuck?” Sollux asked. “You said treaty, Doctor. It means the end of the war, unless I’m seriously confused about the meanings of words.”

“This isn’t supposed to be happening,” the Doctor said. “I think someone’s messing with history.” 

“Can they do that?” Liandra asked. 

“Of course they can. World War I isn’t a fixed point.”

“So if it doesn’t have to start…it doesn’t have to end?” Aradia asked. 

“Exactly,” the Doctor responded, doing a gesture that it seemed only he did when he was explaining and someone got it. 

“But does that mean we can’t interfere?” Aradia asked. 

“I can interfere all I like,” the Doctor said. “But…whoever this is. I don’t think they just want to extend World War I. World War II is a fixed point; there would be no point in simply prolonging World War I. I think they want to have eternal war on Earth.”

“Who would want that?” Liandra asked in confusion. “Don’t we fight war for peace?”

“Someone that revels in war and bloodshed,” the Doctor practically spat. “Something that enjoys seeing pain and death. Something that loves hatred and fights peace for war.” 

“Like what?” Sollux asked. “Besides trolls.”

“Well…there are a few species that are inherently warlike. But even they want peace on some level. No one species enjoys war…except one. The Daleks find hatred beautiful,” the Doctor spat again. “But they would go for World War II, which was about hating Jews, disabled people, homosexuals, and some other minorities. It must be a person or group of people who are…evil.” 

“The treaty was signed at 11 o’clock, I think,” Liandra asked. “If we want to keep it the same, I think we have about four hours.”

“Why do you say that?” the Doctor asked. He had a very good sense of time, but not that good.

“The sun says about seven,” Liandra said. 

“School is good for something, isn’t it,” Aradia remarked. 

“Suppose so,” Liandra said. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” 

Now that they were off the battlefield, the bombs that shook the ground and poisonous gasses that threatened the creep into their lungs to kill them seemed distant and far away, like a documentary that students watch in history. Liandra shivered. “It’s like those movies. I always hated those videos we always watched in history,” she said. “My uncle died in the Eurasian war when I was little.”

“I’m sorry,” Aradia sympathized. “My lusus died when I was little, too.” 

Sollux shifted awkwardly, remembering precisely what happened when her lusus died. Aradia caught his movement and turned to him. “It wasn’t your fault,” she insisted. “If anyone, it was mine.” 

“Yeah right,” Sollux scoffed. “It was Vriska.”

“Right. But not you,” Aradia persisted. 

“What happened?” the Doctor asked. “You keep mentioning that it wasn’t his fault.”

“Can we talk about this later?” Sollux snapped irritably. 

The Doctor nodded, acknowledging the seriousness of the story that must be behind this whole thing. 

“So, back to the actual problem, which is that a war that’s supposed to be over isn’t over, and we don’t know why or how,” Sollux stated. 

“I don’t know what it could be,” the Doctor said. “Only something that lives in time could do something like this.”

“Like…in the time vortex?” Aradia asked curiously. 

“Yes. But, you see, the problem is that nothing lives in the time vortex. Nothing can even survive there for long outside of a capsule. So what is it?”

“Couldn’t it just be something time traveling?” Sollux asked. 

The Doctor shrugged. “I suppose, but can’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?” Sollux asked. 

“There’s been so much disturbance in the time stream; something crossing its own path, meeting itself over and over again, even altering fixed points.”

“I thought World War I wasn’t a fixed point?” Aradia asked. 

“Well, it’s not, but some parts of it are, if that makes sense,” the Doctor explained (rather badly). 

“Not at all, but that’s okay,” Aradia said. 

“So what do we do now?” Liandra asked. 

“Well…we find what went wrong and fix it!”

“That sounds hard.”

“It is, but it’ll be fun.” 

The four of them climbed back into the TARDIS and rocketed into the past. 

***

It was four days ago when they stepped out of the TARDIS. “This is right. I think,” the Doctor said, scanning the area with his eyes. 

Liandra observed with interest, her robotic eyes taking in everything. Although she still had a human brain, she had a near-photographic memory because of the cameras that had replaced her eyes. 

Something changed. 

Not one of them could explain precisely what happened, but something changed. The entire scene around them was different than it had been a second ago. It was like the world had blinked out, dramatically altered itself, and appeared again. “What the fuck?” Sollux shouted in shock. 

“What was that?” Aradia asked, nervousness creeping into her gut. 

“Uh…time just changed.”

“So why’d we notice it this time?” Liandra asked. 

“We’re time-travelers. We see things differently for it,” the Doctor answered. 

“So something literally just—” Aradia began, but she was cut off by another blinking universe. 

“Just changed,” Aradia finished with a very disgruntled tone of voice. 

The Doctor nodded. “This is going to be a tricky one,” he smiled, doing that gesture again, the “oh-yay-a-new-creature-to-discover-and-it’s-probably-murderous” one. 

“So…any idea?” Sollux asked, raising his eyebrows. 

“None at all! But I have a feeling that we’re going to have to do some digging for this one,” the Doctor enthused. 

“So…what do we know about it?”

“It lives in the time, as opposed to space,” Liandra said. “So it’s probably made of time?”

The Doctor nodded, clearly thinking. “Very few creatures can survive the rigors of the time vortex. A few of myth, of course, but some are real. So…possibly a Guardian. But they’re pacifists. So are the Jaxons and the Passens. That leaves Wendasses and…well, one creature. But Tempises aren’t real.” 

Aradia shrugged. “Famous last words,” she joked. 

Liandra was the only one who cracked a smile. 

“So how do you beat a Wendass?” Sollux asked practically. “I mean, if they are what you say they are, they’re pretty fucked up.”

“They can only go back so many times. Keep interfering with their plans, and they’ll run out of tries.”

“So we just have to find what it disturbed and fix it?” Aradia asked. 

“Yes. And because of temporal phenomena which I’m not going to go into, the only alteration that matters is the one that took place in the last four days.”

“What could it be?”

“I don’t know. Anything. A bomb dropped, a gas released, a piece of information passed, a battle rigged. Anything! But Aradia or I would know it.” 

Aradia nodded. “Time does feel pretty screwed up around here,” she commented. 

“I’ll go with Aradia,” Liandra volunteered. Aradia smiled brightly, glad for the company. Sollux had been her only friend (and the Doctor, of course) for a sweep and a half now, and the only other girl she’d met since then. Plus, she seemed interesting and she had been through a lot. 

Aradia’s wings fluttered slightly, even though they were folded out of sight. If she could just fly, this would be so much easier! But reports of flying, gray-skinned people with horns wouldn’t go over too well. She was wearing baggy clothes over her Maid of Time costume and a floppy hat to cover her large, ram-horn-shaped horns. She went unnoticed by most. Liandra looked perfectly human, if not the whole not-blinking thing, and could pass for any normal person. 

Aradia closed her eyes to better feel the time around her. She suddenly felt a push from behind and landed heavily on her front. I’ve been shot! she thought. But there was no blood, no feeling of dying and being brought back. Just dirt. 

“Sorry,” Liandra apologized. “I saw a bomb and I sort of panicked.” 

Aradia stood and brushed herself off. “S’okay,” she said. She stiffened suddenly—something had changed. She turned, trying to locate the source. It was…

“The bomb!” she shouted. “It wasn’t supposed to fall. I don’t know how that manages to change the course of history, but there you go.”

“Let’s go!” Liandra exclaimed, running ahead of Aradia to the sight of the bomb. 

When they arrived, Sollux and the Doctor must’ve arrived at the same conclusion, because they were also at the bombed area. “That’s it,” the Doctor said. “About a hundred lives that are no longer lived out. That’s the change.”

“So how do we fix it?” Aradia asked. 

“There’s going to be a second bomb. We stop that one, we save the day.” 

“And how the fuck are we going to that?” Sollux questioned cynically. 

“By fighting in the time vortex,” the Doctor answered. “Back to the TARDIS!” 

***

Back at the TARDIS, the Doctor did something (none of them were really sure) and suddenly the TARDIS was somehow suspended in the time vortex. Everyone could feel the TARDIS resisting, but the Doctor was stubborn. “So how do we fight if we can’t survive?” Sollux asked. 

“We persuade it to come into a region of space. Space and time are one thing, a huge continuum. Most people regard time and space as separate things, but they’re not. So we could get the Wendass into the TARDIS and talk to it.”

Sollux rolled his eyes. “Talk to it,” he muttered under his breath. 

“But none of us can survive long enough out there. Radiation, right?” Aradia persisted. 

The Doctor nodded. “The radiation destroys the DNA.”

“So we’ve got a problem,” Sollux summarized. 

“Not quite,” the Doctor said. 

“I can survive,” Liandra stated blandly. “This metal and plastic should protect my brain from the radiation.”

“But how can you talk the thing into the TARDIS?” Sollux asked. 

“I can theoretically take hold of it and drag it in here,” Liandra answered. 

“You said, ‘should’. As in, ‘should’ protect you. But what if it doesn’t?” Aradia asked, concerned. 

“It’s my choice. I’ll be fine,” Liandra insisted.  
“Doctor!” Aradia appealed. “You can’t let her do this! It’s insane!” 

“Seriously, I’ll be fine,” Liandra persisted. “Doctor, can you open the doors?” 

“Yes,” the Doctor said. “The Wendass is probably good-gone-bad, so you’ll be able to tell it. Jus grab it and bring it back here.”

“Alright. I’m ready,” Liandra said. 

The Doctor nodded and opened the TARDIS doors onto the time vortex. “Don’t look!” he screamed over the unbearably roar of time rushing past. “Liandra, close your eyes! You’ve got five years!”

“I can’t!” she yelled, stepping out of the safety of the time capsule and into the vortex. 

From the perspective of the travelers inside the TARDIS, not much happened for a good ten minutes. In which the Doctor chose to shout something that was impressively off topic. 

“I remember!” the Doctor shouted suddenly.

“Remember what?” Aradia asked.

“I do know you from somewhere! I once met someone who looked a lot like you in the vortex! She was wearing this neon green dress and she was older. She crashed into the TARDIS so I let her in but then she didn’t talk. She tried to, but it was all nonsense. She tried to communicate telepathically, but it didn’t work. Then she left. But she looked a lot like you!”

“That’s the Handmaid,” Aradia said. “She…well, she’s my ancestor,” she explained, the way one explains away an embarrassing parent. “She’s sort of evil…but it’s not her fault. Really. This guy, Doc Scratch, it’s his fault. Long story. She’s a demon in our history.” 

Just then, Liandra tumbled back inside the TARDIS, breathing heavily and half dead. Aradia ran to her new friend and grabbed her shoulders. “Are you okay?” she asked, fearing for Liandra’s life. 

Liandra stumbled to her feet before collapsing again. 

“You stayed in the vortex for at least ten years!” the Doctor exclaimed. “That was a precisely calculated quantity! You barely made it back here alive!”

“I almost got it,” Liandra murmured. 

“You could’ve killed all of us!” the Doctor added. “If you died out there and the TARDIS never landed, we’d all die too!”

Liandra shook her head. “It’s not what you said it is,” she added. “It’s different.”

“Different how?” the Doctor asked. 

“It was bad. Really bad. Like...evil,” she explained. 

Liandra fainted. 

“What do you mean, ten years?” Aradia asked. “She’s still the same age.” 

“Time is different in the vortex. For all intents and purposes, she was out there for ten minutes.”

“And if it’s not a Wendass,” Sollux began. “Then what is it?” 

“Well...that leaves a Tempis.”

“Which isn’t real.”

“As of now, I’m willing to consider the possibility,” the Doctor responded as the entire TARDIS shook violently. 

“It’s here!” the Doctor called gleefully, throwing open the doors. An entity flooded into the room. Liandra was right: it was malign, evil. Aradia, no longer wearing the baggy disguise (she hated the thing), fluttered her wings nervously, in case she had to fly everyone away. 

“You are a Tempis, time of origin being the year zero!” the Doctor shouted to the entity. “I request audience with you to peacefully conference in accordance with the fifteenth convention of the Shadow Proclamation!”

There was no outloud response, but three of the four heard the answer. 

I am not constrained by the same rules as you petty beings of space.

“That doesn’t matter! You are in space and must therefore obey the laws of space.”

You are all so silly, so petty. 

“We are sure as fuck NOT!” Sollux yelled. 

The entity seemed surprised. So this one can hear me as well.

“I can too!” Aradia yelled. “I can hear you!”

Oh, a nice pair of psychics? How cute, the entity said. 

“You must go back and change this time back to its proper state of affairs!” the Doctor retaliated. 

It’s not a fixed point, the Tempis said. Why should I?

“Because there are lives at stake! World War I may not be fixed, but it does end! Think of the lives at stake. Think of every single being out there who is going to die. Think of their families, their friends, their lives. They are loved and valued! Would you really pull that out from someone?”

They are unimportant. 

“They are not! Every single creature to breath on that planet, on any planet, is extraordinary and unique. Not a single being is ever unimportant! Even the smallest person can have the hugest effect on the world! No one is unimportant!”

Does war not provide the basis for the entire history of mankind?

“They fight war for peace! They don’t fight for the sake of fighting, for the sake of killing. They fight to right a wrong! And as for who’s right, that’s sometimes debatable, but they fight for what they believe in and for what is right!”

They are petty beings of space. What is a being of time to care about them? 

“Time and space are the same thing. There is no difference between the two! You, of all beings, should understand this! It’s just simple quantum physics! You are the same as them, only you live in a different habitat! You could just destroy them all if you wanted to, but you are choosing this state of perpetual war. Why?”

They amuse me when they fight, the tiny beings of Earth. 

“That’s not your right. They are busy living out their lives, their history, on the other side of the time vortex in that beautiful cycle of life and death and war and peace and love and loss. You don’t have the right to disrupt their lives for your own amusement. You can take delight in war, but you can’t just choose a planet and control the course of its history. I order you to put this right!”

And what if I don’t? 

“We’re going to land soon. We can either land before the bomb, stop it, and you live, or we can let you out in a spatial world and you won’t be able to survive properly for long.”

You cannot contain me. 

“You can’t leave the TARDIS, can you?” Aradia asked aloud. “As long as you’re here, we control you.” 

The voice sounded more dangerous, angrier. What right do you have to interfere with my own life choices if I cannot interfere with the spatial world? 

“I am a Time Lord,” the Doctor said, his voice also sounding more dangerous and foreboding than Aradia had never heard before. “I’m the last of the Time Lords. The laws of time are mine to protect and control. You are a being of time, therefore I rule you.

The dark voice snickered. You silly space being. How could you be a… 

The Doctor cut off the voice. “I am and I will not let you leave without being brought to justice.”

You are, the voice said, and it sounded wary. But your kind do not interfere. 

“My name is the Doctor, and I protect the Earth and its people. I will interfere all I like.”

You are the rebel. The odd one out. The one who ran and never looked back. 

“Time to choose.”

There was a deafening silence in three of their heads as the Tempis considered its choices. 

I will accept your terms, it said. I will repair this World War I. But for the sake of my own life, not the lives of the space creatures.

The Doctor nodded and let the TARDIS land on a bomber. 

“That’s us down there!” Aradia exclaimed. “Wait--this is a paradox. If the bomb never falls, we never go find the Tempis.”

I can sustain the paradox. I’ve created more complex before. 

Sollux swatted at the air. “It’s shouting,” he said. “It’s so fucking loud!” 

“I’m still not hearing it,” Liandra said frankly. 

“You’re not psychic, you wouldn’t,” Aradia said. “That’s alright, though. Most people aren’t.” 

“So...you’re a troll?”

“Alternia born and raised.”

“Alternia is your planet?”

“Yep. And Earth is yours?”

“Chicago born and raised,” Liandra smiled. 

“So…sisters? Brothers? Parents?”

“My mom and dad. My older brother. My little sister. You?”

“My lusus died when I did.”

Liandra gave Aradia a curious look. “You’ll have to brief me on troll culture,” she said. 

“Maybe another time,” Aradia said. Liandra nodded, acknowledging the seriousness of their insane situation. 

The Tempis filled the bomber, stalling the engines and crashing the equipment. Now return me, it commanded. Return me to the vortex. Time has been “repaired”. 

“Fine,” the Doctor said. The four of them plus an entity made of time climbed into the TARDIS and flew into the vortex. 

***

“No one look,” the Doctor said, throwing open the doors of the TARDIS for just long enough for the Tempis to leave. 

But not without one last remark. I hope you enjoy your time in space, the Tempis whispered. It won’t last. 

“What was that about?” Aradia muttered. 

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said, looking every-so-slightly shaken up. “Well, come on then! Where to?”

“Liandra, how about you choose?” Aradia said, nudging her robotic friend. 

Liandra smiled widely at the choice. “Anywhere, anytime?”

“All of time and space,” the Doctor confirmed with an equally huge smile. 

“Then…Earth. Anytime.”

“Anytime?”

“Any time at all.”

The Doctor spun around and hit some buttons. “To Earth, anytime!” he exclaimed. 

Aradia grabbed Sollux and Liandra by their hands and spun them around. “We’re off!” she called, and for once, all seemed right in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are there any Doctor Who villains you’d like to see in this? Which ones?


	6. Monsters of the Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone knows that monsters aren’t real. But when a sudden arrival in the middle of a lake shows a strange creature lurking, the crew of the TARDIS and their new allies must determine what it is in order to save the innocent people of the town nearby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry this is late! School has been getting in the way and I've been busy planning out my school's Homestuck club year! Anyways, credit to my best friend (slytherinpirate.tumblr.com) for this fantastic idea. Thanks for reading and please reply to the question!

“It’s not real,” mutters the woman in the lab cost. “It’s impossible.” She walks around the laboratory, examining test tubes of DNA and checking chemical reactions. Everything seems to be in order, but the sum of the results is impossible.

  
The other woman enters with a stack of papers full of pictures and lists and quotations. “It’s indisputable,” she says. “Add these results together, it’s…”

  
“Real and impossible,” the woman in the lab coat agrees, tapping away at a keyboard connected to a large monitor. “Real and impossible.”

 

***

 

  
“Well?” Aradia asked.  
  
“Well what?” the Doctor answered.  
  
“Well what year is it?” Aradia persisted.

  
“It’s...early twenty-first century,” the Doctor guessed.

  
“You really like this time on Earth,” Sollux commented.

  
“It’s the most fun!” the Doctor exclaimed.

  
Sollux rolled his eyes.

  
“Oh, don’t be so cynical,” Aradia teased. “I love Earth!”  
  
“It’s better than Alternia,” Sollux acknowledged. “Then again, fucking everything is better than Alternia.”

  
“Fair point,” Aradia smiled. Alternia was nobody’s favorite planet.

  
Liandra, who had been “sleeping” (a state she achieved by shutting down some of her systems to simulate a feeling of sleep), stirred suddenly. “Earth?” she asked.

  
“Early twenty-first century,” Aradia said.

  
“Cool!” Liandra exclaimed. “I love Earth history.”

  
“Well, come on then!” the Doctor called. The four of them piled out of the TARDIS and right into a lake.

 

***

“Right then.”

  
“It’s a bit wet,” Sollux stated dryly.

  
“Don’t come out here, Liandra,” Aradia said, fluttering above her damp friends. “Wait--are you waterproof?”  
  
Liandra nodded. “It’s very advanced, this whole robotic-body thing.” She dove gracefully into the body of water and swam to where Aradia was. The two of them sat on the shore and waited for Sollux and the Doctor to catch up.

  
“You know, you could’ve flown us,” Sollux said grumpily when the two male members of the group landed on the beach.

  
“This is more fun,” Aradia teased, smiling and fluttering her gossamer wings. Liandra laughed as well, and though it sounded robotic, her voice had a happy ring to it that sounded very human.

  
The Doctor, who was sopping wet, half-smiled. “Alright, let’s go exploring!”

  
“Where are we?” Liandra asked.

  
“Scotland somewhere,” the Doctor answered.

  
“Where’s Scotland?” Sollux persisted.

  
“Oh yes, you’re not from Earth! Scotland is just above England.”

  
“And where’s England?”

  
“Well, never mind that. But I think this is a loch.”

  
Liandra, who had been carefully scanning the area, chose to speak up. “I think it’s Loch Ness. I came here with my family when I was little.”

  
“I still don’t know what the hell that means,” Sollux insisted, annoyed.

  
“Wait--where’s the TARDIS?” Aradia asked, searching the body of water for the now-familiar blue box.

  
“Uh, about that, it’s probably sent itself somewhere safer than the middle of a lake,” the Doctor said awkwardly, offering the three others a crooked smile.

  
“Nice,” Sollux said sarcastically.

  
“You know, it’d be fun to go for a swim,” Aradia said idly. “Come on, let’s go swimming!”

  
“Won’t your wings get wet or some shit?” Sollux asked.

  
“They’ll be fine,” Aradia affirmed, fluttering the thin sheets of silky material. She dove into the loch, propelling herself all the better with her wings.

  
Sollux followed reluctantly, gingerly emerging himself in the water. Liandra was careful enough, but her robotic body wasn’t very sensitive to temperatures until they became dangerous. The Doctor swam slightly spastically, very similar to his style of walking.

  
Aradia reached for Sollux’s hand, remembering their time floating by the Green Sun. But just as her fingers brushed his, Sollux jumped half way out of the water and grabbed Aradia’s shoulder. “WHAT THE FUCK!” he shouted in fear.

  
“What? What is it?” the Doctor asked.

  
“Something grabbed my leg!”

  
“It was probably just seaweed,” Liandra said. “I’ll go look.” She dove into the water and examined the lake carefully. She turned one more time and shot right back up to the surface.

  
“THERE IS SOMETHING HUGE THERE!” she screamed. “HUGE AND...IT WAS THE LOCH NESS MONSTER!”

  
“But that’s not real,” the Doctor said in confusion. “I mean, properly not real.”

  
“It was there, right next to me,” Liandra insisted, breathing heavily.

  
“But it can’t be,” the Doctor argued. He shook his head, splattering water all over the other three.

  
There was a pause, then the Doctor jumped out of the water. “OH MY GOODNESS IT IS REAL EVERYBODY OUT!” he yelled. Aradia reflexively grabbed her friends’ hands and flew them to shore, their feet just barely skimming the water. The four of them landed in a heap on the shore, breathing hard and terrified.

  
“Who are you and why are you here?” a tall woman asked, glaring at the four.

  
“We...uh…we sort of ran into a monster...” Liandra tried to explain.

  
“I don’t care what you ran into, this is a confidential laboratory. Now, you better explain why you’re here before I turn you over to the police.”

 

***

  
“I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor said. “And this is Aradia, Sollux, and Liandra.”

  
“I’m not going to ask why two of you don’t look human,” the woman said. “Why are you here?”

  
“Well, we were swimming in the lake and then something seemed to attack us,” the Doctor explained.

  
“Who are you, though?” the woman persisted.

  
The Doctor patted his pockets, eventually pulling out a piece of paper in a case and displaying it to the woman. “We are representatives from the Department of Sea, Lake, and Loch...geographical research,” he lied. The woman looked suspicious, but the papers must’ve looked very realistic, because she told them, “Follow me. And do something about that gray skin, will you?”

 

***

  
When they arrived at the lab, another woman was inside, studying history books. Her ridiculously long hair hid her face, but she was clearly studying something carefully. She was also searching results on a laptop next to her. “My name is Dr. Harold. My wife, Dr. Kelley, and I are studying marine life in this loch,” the tall woman said. “However, sonar sweeps have detected a mobile irregularity in the bottom of the lake. It moves quite often, and it is too big to be a marine animal. What form of geographical disturbance could that be, Doctor...what was it?”

  
“Just the Doctor,” the Doctor said with a smile.

  
“Right. Well, Doctor, what is it?”

  
The Doctor, still smiling, sat on a rolling chair by the computers and started typing. He was clearly searching the database for something, something important. His face wore a rare look of concentration and seriousness. He shook his head and typed something else.

  
“We don’t have any record of anything like this ever before,” Dr. Kelley said, standing up. “Please, call me Anna. I’m the historian here. This is my wife Lisa. Who are you?”

  
“I’m Aradia,” Aradia said. “This is Sollux and Liandra. And that’s the Doctor.”

  
Anna nodded. “We can’t find record of anything even close to this. I’m starting to believe it must be something living. But that’s impossible.”

  
“It’s not,” the Doctor said. “It’s living.”

  
“What?” Lisa asked in shock.

  
“I met something like this before, a long, long time ago. They called it Kroll and it lived on the third moon of Delta Magna. Of course, it was much, much bigger. It was a god to them. But here...I think it’s better known as the Loch Ness monster.”

 

***

  
“You’re kidding me,” Liandra said. “That story? The Loch Ness monster is a myth and everyone knows it.”

  
“It seems not,” the Doctor said. “This is pretty obviously a living creature.”

  
“Then what is it? It can’t be a whale, and nothing else is big enough,” Lisa, who was clearly a biologist, said.

  
“It’s alien,” Aradia realized. “So...why’s it here?”

  
“I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “Let’s figure out the what first before the why, shall we?”

  
“Well, then what?” Liandra asked. She was examining the pictures on the large monitors full of pixelated, badly taken pictures. They all seemed to be of one thing from different angles; one very large, very bizarre thing. It was dark in color, clearly, but also had some sort of protruding neck and other limbs.

  
“I could take pictures,” Liandra suggested. “My cameras are really good.”

  
“Your cameras?” Anna asked curiously.

  
“Long story,” Aradia interrupted. Liandra’s bravery-to-the-point-of-stupidity seemed to extend to fearlessly telling the truth. She turned to her friend. “That would put you in a lot of danger.”

  
“It’s probably not vicious; it didn’t hurt us earlier,” Liandra pointed out.

  
“It still has to eat,” Aradia argued. “It might be omnivorous.”

  
“I’m not meat,” Liandra said. “Nothing eats metal.”

  
Aradia glanced significantly at the two non-alien, non-robots in the room. Liandra, catching the glance, closed her eyes briefly and nodded. “I’ll be fine,” Liandra insisted.

  
“Fine,” Aradia agreed. “But I’ll be right above you in case something happens.” She then turned to Sollux. “You could…fix her up if this goes wrong?” she asked of him.

  
Sollux nodded. “With a few parts, I probably could.”

  
While the three had been talking, the Doctor had been talking with Lisa and Anna. “Aradia, Sollux, Liandra,” he said. “Come here.”

  
“What is it?” Sollux asked.

  
“So it turns out that there’s a mini-sub going down to investigate today. There’s room for all of us but two. Anna’s staying here, so one of us has to stay behind.”

  
Sollux raised his hand. “I’ll do computers,” he said. Aradia raised an eyebrow at him, knowing his deep fear of submarines. But that was all right; even the humans had intercoms so that Anna and Sollux could communicate with the sub.

  
“So…are we going now?” Liandra asked eagerly.

  
“I have to gather my equipment first. And also…I’ve studied biology since I was in seventh grade, and I’ve never seen anybody like you. What are you?”

  
Aradia and Sollux look at each other, then the Doctor. Aradia had lost her floppy hat long ago, although she’d remembered to wear baggy clothes to hide her wings, and Sollux was just dressed normally. The Doctor jumped in, as always. “They’re trolls. I’m a Time Lord. She’s a robot.”

  
Lisa sat down.

  
Anna, a bit calmer, began, “Trolls? And a robot? And a Time Lord?”

  
“Sollux and I are from Alternia,” Aradia said. “We’re not human. So aliens are real.”

  
“I’m from the future, 2318. Then we traveled to the future even more to get me this robotic body that’s going to die when my brain does naturally,” Liandra explained.

  
“And I’m from Gallifrey,” the Doctor said. “The Time Lords watch over time. I’m the last of them.”

  
Lisa braced her hands on her knees and took a deep breath. “I’ll cope with this later. We’ve got to get in that sub and figure this out.”

 

***

  
The four-person crew of the mini-sub was shaken around as the craft plunged into the loch below. Anna and Sollux waved goodbye before heading back to the lab and the radios. Aradia didn’t want to admit it, but her wings were trembling. Liandra wore a nervous smile, and the Doctor his usual crazy grin. Lisa was completely stony faced as she piloted the controls to the bottom of the loch.

  
“Alright, sending you the live sonar feed,” Anna said over the intercom. “You should be able to track the thing.”

  
“I still want to go out,” Liandra persisted. “It would be fun.”

  
“You’ve got a funny idea of fun,” Sollux said over the intercom. “Be fucking careful, AA, dammit.”

  
His concern touched Aradia. “I will, Sollux. You too,” she replied fondly.

  
Liandra smiled, as if on a roller coaster, while Lisa tracked the creature around the loch. It moved far faster than they could; it must be accustomed to water.

  
“We need to try process of elimination,” the Doctor said. “Let’s list qualities.”

  
“It swims well,” Aradia said.

  
“Planet with water, then.”

  
“Fucking huge,” Sollux suggested.

  
“So a planet with large oceans,” the Doctor concluded.

  
“Fresh water,” Liandra noted. “It’s not like sharks or something.”

  
“So…a planet with fresh water,” the Doctor said. “Hm…Down to a thousand or so planets.”

  
“We could get pictures,” Liandra insisted. “Like I suggested.”

  
The Doctor nodded. “Good idea. Your body can stand the pressure?”

  
Liandra nodded. “It can protect my brain, too.”

  
Aradia sighed. “Probably the best option we’ve got at this point.”

  
Liandra grinned in excitement. She touched something on the side of her head, turning on the memory chip that could record everything she saw and heard for a good three hours. (It was a very rudimentary chip for the time when they got the robotic body). “Ready,” she said.

  
“Airlock is in the back,” Lisa said shortly, carefully guiding the controls. “You’ll have about half and hour out there, then we’re calling you back in.” She handed the adventurous girl a waterproof headset and added, “You must come back in when we tell you to. We’ve only got so much oxygen and though I don’t think you need any, we do. So please comply.” Lisa was clearly a leader.

  
“I will,” Liandra said, heading for the airlock and leaving the mini-sub.

  
It was quiet on both intercoms for a very long time.

 

***

  
Meanwhile, Sollux and Anna were working frantically on the computers above. Neither was making eye contact, but they were conversing.

  
“Trolls, huh?” Anna asked.

  
“Yeah,” Sollux answered vaguely. “Warlike species. Deeply fucked up. You know.”

  
“Yeah,” Anna answered, mostly focusing on sustaining the life support systems. “Futuristic robot?”

  
“E-Cyberman. Supposed to be emotionless. Defeated Cybermen. So we got her a new body.”

  
“Hm,” Anna acknowledged. “Time Lord?”

  
“Dunno,” Sollux shrugged, tracking the sub and the creature with the sonar. “He’s cool, though.” Something he’d never say out loud if anyone he knew was around.

  
Anna nodded, still working.

  
“You and Lisa?” Sollux asked, deciding to make polite conversation for once, mostly because his friends weren’t there to do it for him.

  
Anna nodded. “Met in grad school. Double major bio and history, she had bio major and geology minor. We got a grant here to study this loch. Married a couple years ago.”

  
Sollux nodded. “You and Aradia?” Anna asked.

  
“Long story,” Sollux answered. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

  
Anna nodded once more as the conversation ceased.

 

***

  
Liandra slid her memory chip out of its slot and handed it to Lisa. “This should have some good pictures. It didn’t try to eat me,” she reported.

  
“Doctor,” Aradia began. “Could I unfold my wings?”

  
The Doctor nodded. “There’s plenty of space!” he said.

  
Lisa gave him a look.

  
“Well, enough,” he said. Aradia slipped off the extra jacket and unfolded her red wings, rolling her shoulders back in relief. Lisa stared briefly, but she seemed to compartmentalize the information as she turned back to her work.

  
“Doctor,” Lisa said. “Come look at these.”

  
“Oh dear…” the Doctor said.

  
“What?” Aradia asked with apprehension. The “Oh dear…” never proceeded anything good.

  
“It’s a Janusite,” the Doctor said. “They’re omnivorous and…they can digest metal.”

  
“It’s approaching us,” Lisa said nervously.

  
“Get out of here!” the Doctor shouted, diving for the controls himself. He and Lisa both seemed to using the controls as the sub rushed to the surface.

  
The Janusite seemed to be following them, almost curious. It appeared to have only rudimentary intelligence, and it was clearly hungry. Aradia felt burgundy-colored sweat trickle down her nose and palms. Even Liandra, who seemed fearless, looked anxious.

  
The sub burst the surface and the claw pulled it up. The four explorers clambered out and landed on the shore, running desperately away from the beach and probably looking like maniacs.

  
“What? What is it?” Anna asked excitedly.

  
“It’s omnivorous and eats metal, that’s all you need to know!” the Doctor shouted. “We’ve got to get out of here! Into the lab!”

  
“Can it live out of water?” Anna asked.

  
“For a short time, yes,” the Doctor said. “Come on, come on!” Aradia grabbed Sollux’s hand and flew him ahead of the others, landing him at the lab first. Anna she took second, then Lisa, then the Doctor. Liandra didn’t get tired, so she didn’t need to be flown.

  
The six of them locked the lab door, breathing heavily and looking around for something to help them.

  
“Doctor…do we have to kill it?” Aradia asked.

  
“I don’t know,” the Doctor said. He looked distressed and anxious, fidgeting and walking around nervously. “It might be our only choice.”

  
“It’s too big to kill without blowing up the loch,” Lisa said practically. “Could we…I don’t know, transport it?”

  
“It wouldn’t fit through the doors of the TARDIS,” Sollux pointed out.

  
“So what do we do?” Liandra asked, pressing her ear to the wall. “I think it’s gone.”

  
“It seems like our only choice is to kill it with some sort of electrical shock,” Lisa stated. “It’s…regrettable, but it might be the only choice.”

  
The Doctor nodded solemnly. It was hard to tell, but if you looked carefully, you could see the guilt and sadness already invading his consciousness. “I can’t take part in this,” he muttered to himself, pacing the lab. Lisa was moving stiffly, as if she was also already worried about the state of the creature. Anna was sitting at the computers, calculating.

  
“If we send the right shock, we might be able to trick the brain into being herbivorous,” Anna said, and she sounded self-assured and confident in a way she hadn’t before. “I think we can manage a non-fatal shock to the right part of the brain. I just need someone to plant the electrodes right where I tell you.”

  
“I will,” Liandra said. “Just tell me where.”

  
Anna nodded. “Here’re the electrodes. Go plant them on the creature on the locations I’ll put on your memory chip.”

  
“How did you know about that?” Aradia asked suspiciously.

  
“Lisa told me,” Anna said. Lisa nodded her agreement. “Now, go on, we don’t have long.”

  
Liandra left the lab, leaving everyone else worried and tense.

 

***

  
“Here?” Liandra asked over the headset.

  
“Exactly,” the Doctor, who was working with Anna and also wearing a headset, said. “And the last one goes right there.”

  
Liandra attached the last electrode. “That all?” she asked.

  
Anna nodded, then, realized that she couldn’t be seen, added, “Yes. Now come up before the sleeping shock wears off.” The Doctor had given the whole loch a shock that put every animal to sleep.

  
Liandra swam for the surface, where Aradia was waiting to fly her back to the lab, just in case.

  
Anna took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and pressed the shock button.

  
The electrical sparks traveled the Janusite’s brain, dissolving the wires and electrodes as it shot to the monster of the deep.

  
“We best be off now,” the Doctor said. “Places to be, people to see, things to do, authorities to avoid!”

  
“They’ll be here any minute to ask us why we just knocked out the power of the town nearby,” Lisa said. To her wife she added, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this one.”

  
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. “The TARDIS relocated itself to that town,” he said. “Come on, let’s go!”

  
“Bye, Lisa and Anna,” Aradia said, waving.

  
“See you!” Liandra called.

  
“Bye,” Lisa smiled (for the first time any of the four travelers had ever seen).

  
“Goodbye,” Anna waved.

 

***

  
“So…did we do okay?” Liandra asked the Doctor.

  
“We did the best we possibly could have,” the Doctor said. “And that’s the most you could ask of anyone.”

  
“I just feel like we damaged the poor thing,” Aradia added, sharing Liandra’s sentiments.

  
“We did probably do irreparable damage to some brain functions,” the Doctor admitted.

  
Liandra’s eyes traced the ground. “I…I guess we did what we could.”

  
Sollux, who had been silent, chipped in his two cents. “We saved people who would have died in agony for the price of one now-herbivorous monster seems like an okay thing to me.”

  
Liandra nodded, but she was still upset.

  
“Not every time is a win,” the Doctor said. “We do what we can, but not everybody lives. And sometimes, we have to make sacrifices. But I think…I think we did alright.”

  
Aradia smiled and playfully shoved Liandra. “You might’ve saved your great-great-great grandmother or someone,” she teased, lightening the mood. Liandra managed a half-smile, and Sollux almost laughed as they climbed aboard the TARDIS and started off for a whole new world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time is important in Doctor Who and Homestuck. So would you rather see time speed up or rewind?


	7. Meet the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Sollux’s turn to choose, and he chooses to visit the distant past of their ancestors. But when impossible, even paradoxal events occur, can even huger paradoxes save them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know if I’ve mentioned yet that this is the eleventh Doctor.

_“Do you know of your heritage?”_

_  
“I don’t have any.”_

_  
“You do. I am your mother. Your heritage is the history of our race, the history of our kind. Your heritage, our heritage, is the gap between the land and the sea, the distance between the ruler and the foot soldiers, the rigidly divided barriers of our world.”_

_  
“Why is it like that? You always say that there’s a gap, Mama, what does it mean?”_

_  
“There are those of us who dwell in the sea. Those of us who live in water. They…do you remember the hemospectrum, love?”_

_  
“Yes, Mama.”_

_  
“Those who inhabit the oceans are the highest. They control our society, but they are detached from the lowest, even the bluebloods. That is the gap. That is our past and our present, but it does not have to be our future.”_

_  
“Mama…could I fix it? I’m not like them. Could I fix the gap?”_

_  
“Maybe, love. When you grow up…you won’t be like the others. Maybe it’s you.”_

 

***

  
“Hey…can I choose this time?” Sollux asked.

  
Aradia nodded. Liandra nodded, too. “Fire away!” the Doctor agreed.

  
“Okay. Can we just go to Alternia in the past, like when our ancestors were around? I’d kinda like to meet mine before he was part of a fucking spaceship.”

  
“Of course!” the Doctor exclaimed. “That would be about…” He swung the computer around to face him and apparently ran some sort of search, because a few seconds later he read the interlocking, rotating circles and announced, “The year F1B-4A3! The year of the Signless at seven and half sweeps.”

  
“Weren’t all records of him erased from history?” Aradia asked curiously.

  
“They were, but they left data ghosts. Everything does. Easy enough to dig up and track! Now come on, let’s go!” The TARDIS rocked and rollicked, vaulting through time and space to a deeply troubled planet of the past.

 

***

  
_“I wonder if we’ll have descendants,” the yellowblood child wonders aloud to his two dearest friends._

_  
“They say everyone does,” the oliveblood answers. “They say that everyone has an ancestor and a descendant.”_

_  
“I think it’d be cool,” the mutantblood says. “But my Mama says I don’t have an ancestor.”_

_  
“What’s a Mama?” the oliveblood, the girl, asks._

_  
“She’s like a lusus, but she’s a troll,” the boy with a mother replies. “She takes care of me.”_

_  
“Cool, “ the little girl says. The three children sit for a long moment. Then the mutant boy speaks up. “Want to meet her?”_

***

  
“Here we are, on Alternia. Back when your ancestors were kids!” the Doctor exclaimed. He threw open the doors into a huge forest.

  
“This looks like where Nepeta’s hive is,” Aradia noted.

  
“Well, this is probably where her ancestor’s hive is-slash-was,” Sollux said, shrugging as if that was obvious.

  
“So let’s find them! Come on!” Aradia enthused. She couldn’t help the excitement. The Handmaid, her own unfortunate ancestor, had told her all about the Signless and his story. Since then, she’d always wanted to meet the famous four. Not that she’d ever tell anyone. Her own ancestor…well, she was long since disillusioned with the prospect of inheriting a destiny to follow.

  
“So…ancestors are sort of like…a great-great-grandparent who you’re supposed to follow? Like, a family business?” Liandra asked.

  
“Sort of?” Aradia tried. “They are supposed to be someone whose legacy you carry out, but you never meet them. Except for the fuchsia bloods, but that doesn’t count. Most lowbloods don’t believe in them; it’s mostly highbloods. But I met mine, so I believe. And the thing is, you’ve got to look for the clues. My…friend Vriska found her ancestor’s journal. I think Eridan found some proof of his.”

  
Liandra nodded, as if she was storing the information away somewhere. She probably was. Although still an emotional creature, she did seem to remember things in a very robotic way.

  
“Look!” Sollux shouted. Everyone turned to see what it was. Embarrassed, he quickly added, “I mean, never fucking mind. Gog, it’s not that fucking important.”

  
“Quite the contrary,” Aradia said. “I think that’s The Disciple.”

  
“Nepeta’s ancestor?” Sollux asked.

  
“Mm-hmm. And that’s…that’s the Psionic!”

  
“My ancestor?”

  
“In the flesh.”

  
“So…do we just go up to them and say hi?”

  
“Liandra and I don’t look like trolls, though,” the Doctor pointed out. “They’ll be suspicious of us, they might even attack us.”

  
“But we’re trolls,” Aradia argued. “And Sollux looks just like Psionic. They’ll get it. I think.”

  
“Wait, who’s the jadeblood lady?” Sollux asked of the taller woman who had walked over to the three friends.

  
“That’s the Dolorosa,” Aradia answered. “Kanaya’s.”

  
“Who’re Kanaya and Nepeta?” Liandra asked.

  
“Old friends,” Aradia smiled. “From back before I died the first time.”

  
“How many times have you died?” Liandra asked in surprise.

  
“Two or so. I’ll explain later,” Aradia tossed off. “It’s sort of a long story.” One sentence that summed up her whole life.

  
The four gathered trolls, perhaps alerted by the twig Sollux stepped on, the wind from Aradia’s fluttering wings, the way Liandra’s robotic body creaked when it was humid, turned to face the four time-travellers. It was the middle of the night; those noises should be buried under the sounds of activity from the rest of the world.

  
“Who’s there?” the boy with the shortest horns called, and his voice sounded confident.

  
“Friend or foe?” the taller boy asked. The girl drew some sort of weapon, while the jadeblooded woman stood protectively in front of all three.

  
The Doctor walked out of the woods, his hands up in surrender. The other three followed. Shocked, the maternal woman took a step back.

  
“Uh…hi,” the Doctor ventured. “I’m…a delegate from the planet Gallifrey sent to Alternia for negotiations.”

  
“The Condesce doesn’t negotiate,” the boy with short horns said loudly, causing the woman who acted like his mother to shush him.

  
“I know you names,” Aradia said. “You’re the Dolorosa. You’re the Signless. The Psionic. And the Disciple.”

  
“I am less formally know as Porrim, Porrim Maryam,” the tall jadeblood said. “And you are?”

  
“Aradia Megido,” Aradia answered.

  
“Liandra Carlson,” Liandra said.

  
“I’m the Doctor.”

  
“Doctor who?”

  
“Just the Doctor.”

  
“And I’m Sollux Captor” Sollux said, his suspicion showing in his voice. The Psionic gasped.

  
“That’s my last name? What’re you playing at?”

  
“It’s my last name too. You’re my ancestor.”

  
“Don’t be stupid, we’re too young to have descendants,” the Psionic said, shaking his head. “I think I’d know if I had a descendant.”

  
“Wait—what if they’re telling the truth?” the Signless pointed out. “He does look a lot like you. He’s got the same horns.”

  
“So?” the Psionic asked. “I still don’t trust them.”

  
“I swear we’re trolls,” Aradia said. “I mean, we’re just a couple trolls and a couple… delegates. We don’t even have any weapons on us.”

  
The oldest jadeblood took a step forward, still shielding the children, and gently tilted Aradia’s face up to her own. “They seem to be telling the truth,” the Dolorosa acknowledged. “Why are you here?”  
  
“Sollux wanted to meet his ancestor,” Aradia answered, briefly forgetting their cover. “Dammit.”

  
“That would be me,” the Psionic said warily. “Mituna. Mituna Captor.”

  
“Nice to meet you,” Sollux said, shaking the other boy’s hand. It seemed, for a brief second, that they were both trying to shock each other with their respective psychic powers. Or maybe that was just what happened when two psychics got too close to each other--sparks inevitably flew everywhere.

  
The girl, who had put away her weapon, now stepped out to greet the new people. “I’m Meulin Leijon!” she exclaimed, waving. “And this is my friend Kankri--”

  
“Meulin,” Kankri complained. “Don’t tell people my last name! They’ll _know_.”

  
“Know what?” Liandra asked curiously. Aradia nudged her.

  
“He’s a mutant,” she whispered. “But no one knows. Like Karkat.”

  
“Who’s Karkat?”

  
“An old friend, like Kanaya and Nepeta.”

  
Liandra nodded, accepting this information.

  
“What did you say?” Kankri asked fearfully. _The Signless before he was the Signless_ , Aradia thought. _Just like Karkat; a young boy afraid of his own blood_.

  
“Nothing. I was just talking about a couple of old friends,” Aradia half-lied.

  
Kankri nodded and emerged from behind Porrim. Meulin, clearly following his lead, also stepped forwards. “Wait--are you...are you part of them?” Mituna asked.

  
“Who?” the Doctor questioned.

  
“You know. Them,” Mituna said vaguely. “Not the Condesce’s them, the other them.”

  
“Yes! We are part of Them,” the Doctor affirmed.

  
Porrim nodded, deciding that the four people, two trolls and two not, were friends. “Then come with us,” she said. “There is something very important starting.”

 

***

  
 _“Mama! Mama! I brought my friends home!”_  
  
“Why would you do that, Kankri? You know better than to let anyone come to this place!”

_  
“But they’re nice, I promise. I told them and they don’t care.”_

_  
“You told them?”_

_  
“I did, and they said they don’t care and they won’t tell. And no one’s come for us yet, so I think they didn’t. Can they please come in, Mama? Please?”_

_  
“Fine. Who are they?”_

_  
“Meulin Leijon and Mituna Captor. They’re just my age. Meulin’s pretty and Mituna’s tall.”_

_  
“Let them in, then. I’ll prepare for you some grubwafers and sugar citrus drink, how does that sound?”_

_  
“Thank you, Mama!”_

 

***

  
The hive wasn’t large, but it was still fairly modest for a jadeblood’s home. A large symbol was painted on the door; it resembled an M with a small loop on the side. “My sign,” Porrim explained. “It has come to mean safety for those seeking refuge from the Condesce.”

  
The green moon was almost setting in the east, and Meulin noticed. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “My lusus will get suspicious if I’m not home by sunrise. She’s really strict about recupracoon time.”

  
“Bye!” Kankri called as she turned and ran into the forest.

  
“See you!” Mituna called.

  
Porrim just watched nervously, as if afraid that the drones would appear from the woods to consume the girl just for being near the place where safety was allowed.

  
“Come in,” Porrim said, opening the door to the neat living room. “Would you like some sugar citrus drink or grubwafers?”

  
“Lemonade or crackers,” Aradia translated under her breath to Liandra.

  
“It doesn’t matter; I can’t eat,” Liandra said flatly. “I miss eating.”

  
“Sure,” Sollux said. “I’m fucking starving.”

  
Porrim seemed about to give him a motherly scolding, but she refrained and walked gracefully to the kitchen.

  
“How old are you guys?” Aradia asked cheerily.

  
“Seven and a half sweeps,” Mituna answered promptly.

  
“Me too,” Sollux said.

  
“Why’re you still here? It is almost sunrise,” Aradia asked.

  
“Uh...my lusus died. So I ran away to here cuz I think I count as ‘people seeking safety’,” MItuna explained. “And Mrs. Maryam’s been really nice to me. I have my own room and everything.”

  
It was then that the perpetual fear she grew up into fully hit Aradia. She was afraid of being different, afraid of being real. Being yourself meant culling. Being yourself meant death. They all felt it; was that why they grew up to be such vicious, emotionless beings? Because they were conditioned to fear and to inspire fear. Because they weren’t allowed to express, emotionally or otherwise.

  
That was the real reason the Signless was buried.

  
“So. What species are you?” Kankri asked.

  
“I’m a robot,” Liandra said. “But I’m human.”

  
“I’m a Time Lord,” the Doctor replied.

  
Mituna and Kankri nodded, though Kankri was clearly preoccupied. Just then, Porrim walked in with the crackers and lemonade and set them on the table. “If you’d like to stay here for the day, you may,” she said. “I have two rooms upstairs of you’d like them. We can discuss more tomorrow. Meulin will be back then and possibly some others. We’ll have our usual free-speech time and possibly share some of the ancient Alternian works. I’ve been searching for a few, and I may have found some.”

  
“Cool,” Aradia said. They were about to experience, first-hand, the beginning of the Signless’s rebellion! There was a consistent underground movement on Alternia, of course, and sometimes a leader emerged and tried to lead a proper rebellion. It was amazing, what one person could do for the planet.

  
“We’ll stay the day, thanks!” the Doctor grinned. Sollux yawned widely. Being back on his home planet reminded him of his normal rhythm of sleeping and waking.  “Let’s get some sleep,” he said. “I need it.”

 

***

  
_“Mama! Mama!” the little boy shrieked._

_  
“What is it, dear? Are you alright?” With his brightly-colored mutation, who knows what sorts of horrible diseases could strike him down?_

_  
“I can’t see…I can’t…I…” the boy trails off. His mother lifts him up and carries him to the couch. He is unconscious, only his irregular breathing and occasional twitches showing that he is still alive. His mother will not leave him, not when he is like this. He is only four sweeps old._

_  
It is hours later, but he finally returns to consciousness. “Are you okay?” his mother pleads. “Are you okay?”_

_  
“I’m okay, Mama,” he says. “But I had a funny dream…”_

 

***

  
“Kankri? Kankri? Is it happening again? KANKRI!” Mituna screamed. Aradia woke up with a start. It was a bit after sunset, just the time when she liked to get up. But what was going on?

  
She climbed out of the recupracoon and gracefully descended the stairs. Kankri was lying on the floor, twitching, and Mituna was shaking him. Porrim was making tea in the kitchen.

  
“Mrs. Maryam! It’s happening again!” Mituna called.

  
“I know, Mituna. I’ll have the tea ready in just a minute and he’ll be fine soon. You know this happens,” Porrim answered.

  
“What happens?” Aradia asked in surprise.

  
“His visions. I believe it is part of blood color. He sees a different era, a different planet, that he says is called Beforus. It is a place where trolls live in peace. It is his goal, you know. His obsession. I think it is good that Mituna and Meulin are around; they keep him on our planet,” Porrim answered. “Speaking of Meulin, she should be here soon. She comes every day.”

  
“Meulin still has a lusus then?” Aradia asked. Porrim nodded.

  
“She lives as a normal troll in the day, but she is one of us at night. Her lusus is old and weak; it doesn’t often notice how much she’s gone.”

  
“Doesn’t she care for her lusus?”

  
“Nearly every day, she tries to persuade me to let her fake her own death and bring her and her lusus here. I have thus far refused, but she is starting to be noticed by one called Aranea. Her situation is growing desperate. If she asks once more, I might just comply,” Porrim said. Aradia paused before asking her next question. She heard the stairs creak and recognized the slightly unsteady steps as Sollux’s and the slightly more even ones that followed as the Doctor’s. Mituna and Sollux seemed to strike up a conversation and Aradia thought she heard the Doctor open a book. Liandra must still be charging.

  
“Meulin is late,” Porrim noted. “She’s never late.”

  
“Does she have a redcrush on Kankri?” Aradia questioned.

  
“I think she does, even if she doesn’t realize it,” Porrim answered. “Kankri is quite clearly red for her, though I don’t know if he knows it.”

  
Just then, someone knocked on the door. “I’ll get that,” Porrim said, setting the kettle on the stove. “It must be Meulin.” Aradia followed, seeing Kankri now curled up on an armchair, holding his head in his hands, and Mituna and Sollux still conversing. Porrim opened the door and said, “Hello, dear, would you—AAAHHHH!”

  
“What? What is it?” the Doctor asked.

  
“Meulin, what happened? What happened?”

  
“A herd of prowlbeasts attacked me. They…they had purple eyes,” Meulin gasped. Her arms and abdomen were mangled beyond recognition. She must’ve barely stumbled here. “Ponce saved me…they took her instead.”

  
Porrim picked up the dying girl and lay her on the couch. “Kankri, get me the bandages. Mituna, troll Advil. Doctor…are you a doctor? You don’t seem to be one.”

  
“I can help,” the Doctor said simply.

  
“She won’t survive,” Porrim said, dropping her voice. “Can you comfort her while I get the tea and sugar?”

  
“How can you think of tea at a time like this?” Aradia asked in utter shock.

  
“It comforts her. When she’s having a bad day, it’s always tea with lots of sugar. I’ll be right back.” Porrim swept to the kitchen and came back within seconds with the items.

  
“Here’s your tea, dear. Just drink this, you’ll feel better,” Porrim assured Meulin, slipping one of the Advils in with the drink. “The pain should go away.”

  
“I’m gonna die, aren’t I?” Meulin asked, looking up at the other three. “I’m going to die.”

  
“It’s okay, Meu,” Kankri said. “You’ll be okay. We’ll patch you up. Won’t we, Mama?” He turned to his mother, who shook her head.

  
“I’m sorry, Meulin, but there’s nothing we can do. I gave you troll Advil; that should take away the pain.”

  
Meulin nodded. “Purple eyes…” she managed to choke out. “It’s funny. Goodbye, Mrs. Maryam. Goodbye, Mituna. Goodbye, Kankri.” She closed her eyes for the last time.

  
“No, that’s not fair!” Kankri screamed. “That’s not fair! She can’t die! We’re not even eight!”

  
“I was just about to let her move here, too,” Porrim lamented. “Just now, just when the tide was turning…”

  
“No, this can’t happen,” Sollux interrupted. “I know for a fact that she has a descendent. Her name’s Nepeta Leijon and she was an olive blood and everything. I mean, she literally can’t die.”

  
“But she just did!” Kankri yelled. “How is that even possible?”

  
“Is anyone else seeing a recurring pattern of purple eyes?” Liandra asked. “That could be it. Something…purple.”

  
“Could be,” the Doctor said. “Purple eyes! It could easily be a disembodied consciousness. When it takes form, it must change the victim’s eyes. Like that sun in the Torajii system. We could be dealing with something like that. In which case we can’t defeat it, only drive it away.”

  
“And how do you propose we do that?” Porrim asked, drawing herself up to her full height.

  
“It must’ve come here when we did. So, all we have to do is go back in time to create a paradox that means we never come here so the purple eyed thing doesn’t either.”

  
“You say that like it’ll be simple,” Liandra said.

  
“It will be! Aradia can time-travel and we’ve got the TARDIS!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Then this will never happen.”

  
“And that’s why you’re optimistic even when a girl has just died?” Kankri asked, almost bitterly. “Because she’ll come back to life?”

  
“And because we won’t remember it,” the Doctor said. “We won’t remember any of this pain.”

  
“Are you sure?” Sollux asked, and his voice sounded tender.

  
The Doctor nodded. “Positive.”

 

***

  
_“Mama? What’s it called when someone is really pretty and you really like them?”_

_  
“That’s called red romance.”_

_  
“What about when you want to keep someone safe?”_

_  
“That’s called pale romance. Why are you asking, Kankri?”_

_  
“There’s someone I think I have pale romance for.”_

_  
“Oh, that’s very good, Kankri. That’s normal.” She used to worry that he wouldn’t love the way others do, that some part of him would love differently. She still wonders about this, because he never speaks of black romance. Perhaps he knows too few people._

_  
“Can you explain to me about red and pale romance?”_

_  
“I can explain all four to you. Come, sit down, and we’ll talk about it.”_

 

***

  
“Just take you and me back in time to when we first arrived,” the Doctor said. “Liandra, you can come too.”

  
“What about me?” Sollux grumped.

  
“You know how sick time travel with me makes you,” Aradia said admonishingly. “Try to keep everyone else safe.

  
“I will,” Sollux promised. “See you soon.”

  
Aradia closed her eyes, picturing the time when they’d arrived. She spun on the spot and felt the vortex whip by her as they plummeted into the past.

  
“Bloody hell,” Liandra spat when they landed. “I’m never doing that again.”

  
The Doctor nodded, looking very nauseous. Aradia simply brushed some dust off her clothes and spread her wings. She smiled a bit at her friends, before helping them up and saying, “Come on then! Let’s go!”

  
The TARDIS, easily visible among the dark trees with its bright blue color  
, was nearby. “I know what to say,” the Doctor said. “Liandra, can you keep an eyes out for animals? These woods are full of them. I’d love to study some up close, but this may not be the time.”

  
“You don’t say,” Liandra muttered. She turned to face the rest of the woods while Aradia and the Doctor headed for the blue box in the woods.

  
“Doctor!” the Doctor called. “Doctor!”  
  
The Doctor from the past wheeled around to see the Doctor from the future. “Go back,” the future Doctor said. “Leave here and save everyone.”

  
“Who—how—what?” the past Doctor stammered.

  
“You remember…the angels. Winter Quay.”

  
“Of course I do,” past Doctor said, just a hint of mist clouding his tired eyes.

  
“It could happen again. It could save a lot of people.”

  
“This is insane.”

  
“It will save lives, I promise.”

  
Past Doctor considered his options. “I’ll leave. Goodbye, Doctor.”

  
“Goodbye,” future Doctor said solemnly.

  
The TARDIS disappeared, and an entire day with it.

 

***

  
_“Please? She’ll be good! I promise! I can fake my death and everything, really I can!”_

_  
The woman sighs. “Fine. Tomorrow. You can sleep upstairs. There are two rooms up there.”_

_  
“Where’s Kankri and Mituna?”_

_  
“Out back. Kankri’s having one of his episodes. We’ll have tea when the pink moon is right overhead, alright? Make sure everyone is inside by then.”_

_  
“I will, Mrs. Maryam.”_

_  
“You can call me Porrim.”_

_  
“But you’re Mrs. Maryam! Maybe one day I’ll call you Porrim. But you’re still Mrs. Maryam to me.”_

_  
The childishness of being called Mrs. Maryam by her son’s friends is just what the woman needs. A reminder that childhood doesn’t have to end. The laughter as Kankri comes out of his planet, Beforus, reminds her of that. She sets the kettle on the stove and smiles. She has always loved children, wished for a child of her own. Now she had three, and they are all growing up to be just as perfect as she always dreamed._

 

***

  
“Liandra? Liandra? What’s wrong?” Aradia asked.

  
“Something’s wrong with my programming,” she said, weird static crackling in her voice. “I don’t know what.”

  
“A paradox,” the Doctor said. “Why did I say that?”

  
“I think I remember a paradox,” Sollux said vaguely.

  
“Paradoxes can mess with futuristic programming, anything after paradoxes were outlawed and punishable by time exile,” the Doctor said.

  
“I can’t…I can’t…I can’t…” Liandra said.

  
“Are…are you dying?” Aradia asked. Her friend’s eyes were going blank, even for fake eyes.

  
Liandra nodded. “Something’s been programmed twice. Something’s shut down the circulation. I can’t…”

  
“Oh gog,” Aradia said. “Is there something we can do? Doctor?”

  
“Not in time,” the Doctor said. “I can try, but it’ll hurt. I don’t think I’ll be able to fix it in time.”

  
“It’s alright,” Liandra said. “My charge is running down. I’ll be dead in just a little bit.”

  
“Can’t we do something?” Aradia asked.

  
Liandra shook her head. “Just…don’t leave.”

  
“I won’t,” Aradia promised. “I’ll be right here.”

  
Liandra’s eyes started to flicker. Her voice gave out. She felt even colder than was usual for a robot. “Paradoxes,” the Doctor muttered to himself. “Why didn’t I think of that? This is my fault.”

  
Aradia sat next to where Liandra lay on the floor, and Sollux next to each her. The Doctor paced, seeming to be looking for a solution. But they all knew it wasn’t a salvageable situation. Liandra was going to die.

  
They all knew they’d miss their new friend, Aradia knew, as Liandra closed her eyes for the last time.

  
And for the first time since even the Doctor could remember, there was quiet in the TARDIS.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there was any time that these three could land in, which would you choose?

**Author's Note:**

> Should the Doctor, Aradia, and Sollux land on a planet with metal people or empty people next?


End file.
